THE GREAT WAR 

THE CAUSES AND THE 
WAGING OF IT 






THEOj^BMERVEY 





COLUMBIA, S. C. 

THE STATE COMPANY, PRINTERS 

1917 



COPYRIGHT, 1917 

BY 
THEO. D. JERVEY 



^ 



■5^ 



/ 



•CI.A476775 



OCT 27ibl7 



PREFACE 

The following short stoiy of the Great War was prepared 
by the author in the winter and spring of 19V when it 
became probable that the United State** would be drawn in 
through the resumption by Germany of unrestricted sub- 
marine activity against neutral shipping and neutral non- 
combatants. It was thought that in the Southern States, 
especially, a clear undei-standing of the causes of the war 
and a truthful account of the waging of it, up to our 
entrance in it, might be of some value to those who might 
not have given much attention to the consideration of such 
before this time. In this connection, if it was advisable for 
the representatives of the French and British Governments 
to indicate to us their mistakes, it was thought by the author 
appropriate that, while revealing, to some extent, the splen- 
did courage, devoted patriotism and wonderful determina- 
tion of the Allies to exhibit, at the same time, the evidence 
of courage, capacity and determination of our foes which a 
study of the war reveals. Also, if there have been mistakes 
made by our Allies, as yet not as apparent to them as to 
some of us, the revelation of such might be as helpful to us 
and to them as was the recital by them of those they did see 
and thought necessary to expose to us so clearly. 




CONTENTS 

Page 

Preface 3 

Chapter I— The Cause of the War 7 

Chapter II — The Invasion of France and Belgium.... 2Q 

Chapter III — The Saving Power of Toleniiue 41 

Chapter IV — The Recourse to "Germania Triuniphans" 53 

Chapter V — Verdun and "Der Tag" G6 

Chapter VI— The Ebbing of the Tide 82 

Chapter VII— The Sul)marine Challenge 03 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CAUSE OF THE WAR 

To obtain in reasonable space and time a definite idea of 
The War. it miglit be a mistake for the average man to 
review the facts which led up to it any further back than 
1890, the twentieth year of the German Empire. 

Two facts of great significance occurred in that year. 
The first was the cession by Great Britain to Germany of 
tlie ishmd of Heligohmd. by which the coast of Germany 
was immensely strengthened against invasion. The second 
was the passing of Bismarck, whose resignation was 
accepted by the young Emperor William the Second, by 
whom, from that date, the policies of Prussia and the Ger- 
man Empire were directed, by such Chancellors as were 
willing to become his mouthpiece. 

In the administration of Bismarck, the German army did 
not absolutely control the German State. In the adminis- 
tration of the young Emperor, it at once became apparent, 
it was increasingly to do so; for that able and resourceful 
ruler at once identified himself with the aspirations of the 
army chiefs and, with great tact, drew together the military 
of Austro-Hungary and Germany through ever\' device 
which could arouse in them a generous emulation and a 
fraternization. Eor this purpose cavalry rides, between 
Berlin and Vienna and Berlin and Buda Pest, became the 
order of the day, and accordingly up and down the roads, 
betwixt the capitals, young German, Austrian and Hunga- 
rian officers continually' thundered, making a record for 
man and beast and receiving, from the German Emperor, 
marked attentions. 

It was thus the beginning of an era; but outside of Ger- 
many few persons had any idea of the inflation of German 
ambition ; for. indeed, to some extent, it was a period of 
reaction throughout the world. A few years previously in 
England, with the shattering of the great Liberal party 
over the question of Home Eule for Ireland, the government 



8 THE GREAT WAB 

of the United Kingdom had passed to the Conservatives, 
under Lord Salisbury, with whom had united the Whigs 
under Lord Hartington and a few Radicals under the 
strongest of them, the able, accomplished and prepossessing 
Joseph Chamberlain, the brass screw manufacturer of Bir- 
mmgham; for Lord Randolph Churchill, the brilliant Tory 
Democrat, to whom the party was greatly indebted for its 
return to power, had been utilized, but not retained. 

In Russia, Alexander the Third, after consulting for a 
short while with Loris Melikoff, entrusted by his father 
with the preparation of a Constitution, dismissed that 
liberal statesman and submitted himself to the guidance of 
the bigot Pobiedonotseff, whose policy it was forcefully to 
Russianize Finland and Poland. 

Even in the United States of America an attempt had 
been made to get back to conditions from which the great 
liberal President Rutherford B. Hayes had freed the Re- 
public when in 1876, he had made the patriotic declara- 
tion:- The flag of the Union floats over independent states 
and not oA^er conquered provinces." 

With the failure of the Federal Force Bill of 1890 to 

F^.^'^,?*^^'''^' *^'^ ^^'* '^^'^'^^^ ^f disaffection produced by 
the War between the States vanished, as the Spanish war 
eight years later indicated, and possibly, this trust reposed 
and vindicated in America helped to sustain the belief in 
the efficacy of such in Great Britain, for, with the resur- 
rection of the great Liberal party in 1905, generous pro- 
visions for home rule were granted the conquered republics 
of South Africa, the bulk of the inhabitants of which were 
thus knit to the Empire. 

That the position of the British Empire in 1890 was not 
entirely secure was not altogether lost sight of by some 
observers, although the quarter from which danger was to 
come the cession of Heligoland indicated ignorance of- 
and by one, apparently competent to judge, time was deemed 
to be all that was essential to render it absolutely secure In 
1 «on ^/''^^''^^ «f ^^'^at^r Britain," Sir Charles Dilke, in 
18.J0, forecasted the development of the three great peoples 
of the world, as they then appeared to him. 



TEE GREAT ^\ AR 9 

Dilke had started life as a Kadical; but, being a man of 
property, besides considerable possessions in England, he 
had an estate in France. He had been a great traveller; 
had made some friendships and many ac(iuaintances at the 
various capitals of Europe; had known Gambetta inti- 
mately: and. through this wide knowledge, possessed to an 
extraordinary degree insight into European questions and 
the forces which govern their development. Credited witli 
conspicuous clearness of judgment and great linguistic 
accpiirenients, as Under Secretary of Foreign Atl'airs, he 
had been in a position to gauge the movements of European 
politics, as few men in England could, and a synopsis of his 
forecast, read at this date, is not without interest. It is as 
follows : 

"The greatest nations of the old world. ai)art from us, are 
limited in territory situate in temperate climes, and France 
and (lermany can hope to play but little |)art in the later 
politics of the next century, while the future seems to lie 
between our own jieople — in the present British empire and 
in the United State.s — and the Russians, who, alone among 
the continental nations of Europe, are in possession of 
unbounded I'cgions of fertile land, outside of P^urope. but in 
climates in which white men i-an work upon the soil." 

After a comparison of the — at that day and prospective — 
resources of these three great powers, in which he not 
unnaturally inclined to the opinion that, upon the whole, 
the British Emjiire was holding "her own against the com- 
petition of her great daughter, although the United States 
'was' somewhat gaining upon her", he affirmed that "both 
were leaving Russia far 'astern'', and that it was possible 
that "the growth of Canada and Australia" might "enable 
the British Empire, not only to continue to rival the United 
States, but even to reassert her supremacy in most points." 
His conclusion was: — 

"The danger in our path is that the enormous forces of 
European militarism nuiy crush the old country and destroy 
the integrity of our Enijiire before the growth of the newer 
communities that it contains has made it too strong for the 
attack. It is conceivable that within the next few years 



10 THE GREAT ^Y AR 

Great Britain might be drawn into war, and receive in that 
war, at the hands of a coalition, a blow from which she 
would not recover, and one of the consequences of which 
Avould be the loss of Canada and India and the proclama- 
tion of Australian independence." 

Within a year from the publication of this forecast and 
the dismissal of Bismarck appeared a German book, "The 
Nation Armed", in which some indication of the direction 
in which the new European political currents were tending, 
was given. 

General Baron Colmar von der Goltz was a great favorite 
of the young German Emperor William the Second and, 
later, made by him reorganizer of the Turkish army. 

Almost as if in answer to the suggestion of what part 
Germany might hope to play in the later politics of the 
next century, in 1891, in "The Nation Armed", he gave his 
view. It was "Preparedness": — 

"To Avork without relaxation in perfecting our army and 
our national military organization more and more, will be 
for us the supremest political wisdom. The increase of our 
moral force, of that power which decides war, should march 
Avith our material progress. We say increase and not main- 
tenance; for moral forces never remain at the same level, 
they decrease as soon as they cease to increase. It is then 
necessary, before everything, to convince ourselves and to 
convince the generation, which we have to educate, that the 
moment for repose has not come; that the prediction of a 
supreme struggle, having for result the existence and the 
grandeur of Germany is no vain chimera issuing from the 
ambition of some aspiring fools; that the supreme struggle 
will inevitably burst some day, grave and terrible, as every 
struggle of nations called upon to inaugurate great political 
revolutions. This sentiment should lead us to do every- 
thing, by example, by word of mouth, by the pen, to 
strengthen in our hearts and in those of our children our 
unshakable fidelity to the Emperor, our passionate love of 
country, our spirit of sacrifice and of abnegation. Under 
these conditions final victory in the future struggle will not 
fail to still belong to the German armv, which ought to be 
and remain the amied German nation." 

As to the exact nature and scope of the supreme struggle 
which this great soldier foresaw, he did not enter into the 



TEE GREAT ^y AR 11 

details; but, as the appetite gi'ows by what it feeds upon, 
in 1895, in "Germania Triumphans", a lesser personage 
sketched them in vivid colors, although he did conceive the 
German people might stop half way on the far reaching 
road he led them to, 

"Germania Triumphans" is a picture of world conditions 
from 11)00 to 1915. The author says:— 

"By the beginning of the Twentieth Century the drawing 
together of the Germans will have become so dangerous 
that in England Free Trade will lose a considerable number 
of i)artisans. Then the federation of the Britannic terri- 
tories will be realized. They would form an immense eco- 
nomic territoiy protected against strange commerce. Of all 
the continental powers (lermany would suffer most from 
this state of things. The situation would soon become intol- 
erable. A pretext would permit an escape from it. In 1902 
the Sultan of Turkey would propose to Germany and Aus- 
tro-Iiungary a custom union. Russia, taking exception to 
this, would call upon France. In that country there would 
be division of opinion, some viewing with satisfaction the 
long expected occasion of a war with Germany, others, that 
it would be better to come to an understanding with the 
government of Berlin. This division of opinion would be 
the consequence of the amelioration of the Franco-German 
relations. Thev would have become so amicable that the 
Emperor William, responding to the invitation of the 
French government, would have visited the Exposition in 
1900. A little while afterwards, he would have even pro- 
posed to France a customs union. Despite these conciliating 
suggestions, no French minister would have dared to affront 
opinion and conclude the treaty. Negotiations would drag 
along to the beginning of 190.S; linally Russia would declare 
war and drag France along with her. The latter would gain 
some victories in the Italian heights, but, in the east, victory 
would range itself upon the side of Germany, and Paris 
would l)e menaced with a new bombardment. Peace would 
be concluded, but, in the interest of her policy, Germany 
would demand nothing from France, contenting herselt with 
the statu quo ante, and renewing even her proposal of an 
alliance. France, convinced this time of the impossibility 
of reconquering, Alsace Lorraine would be gained by this 
conduct. Free in the west, the German Emperor would 
return with all his forces against Russia. His armies would 
march at once upon Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Ger- 
man fleet would blockade the shores of the Baltic and the 



12 THE GREAT WAR 

Gulf of Finland. The Austrian army would operate in the 
region of Kiev and the Turks would take the Caucasus in 
the rear. Under this triple attack Russia, overwhelmed, 
would sue for peace, which would be signed at St. Peters- 
burg. Germany, as the principal conqueror, would demand 
and receive the lion's share. She would acquire the Baltic 
provinces, Poland, Volhynia, Podolia and the Crimea. Tur- 
key would receive the entire region between the Black and 
the Caspian Seas. Austria would receive Bessarabia and 
constrain the Balkan States, upon whom would be imposed 
German princes, to form Avith her a Federal State. The 
German tongue would be proclaimed the official language of 
Austria, where various agencies would assure the unshakable 
siipremacy of 'Germanism.' Soon after the peace of St. 
Petersburg, Austria, Turkey and France would send dele- 
gates to Berlin to elaborate a vast Zollverein. They would 
recognize the impossibility of suppressing completely all 
customs and Avould adopt two tariffs. One very much 
reduced would be reserved for the confederated States, the 
otner, prohibitive, would be applied to products exterior to 
the Zollverein. A customs parliament installed at Berlin 
would attend to this economic organization ; but the division 
of votes between the different States would assure the supre- 
macy to Germany. 

"Her conimerce favored by gi-eat works, and especially 
by the prolongation of the railways from Anatolia to the 
Persian Gulf, would obtain a considerable extension Ger- 
man agriculture would become flourishing and suffice, thanks 
to new territories, to all the needs of the population. A 
period of peace would commence. The Berlin government 
would institute a series of social reforms and methodically 
organize German colonization even in Europe. In spite of 
this privileged situation, affairs would be always difficult 
Avith America. German diplomacy would succeed in con- 
vincing the French and Italian governments of the necessity 
of intervention, and, in 1912, the fleets of the three powers 
would commence hostilities upon the coasts of America, 
llie difficulties would be numberless; but finally the troops 
ot the Union would be defeated and peace signed at Mexico. 
Ihe allies Avould receive a considerable war indemnity Ger- 
many would acquire Mexico and Guatemala; France the 
Central American States. These acquisitions would in the 
first month of 1913 excite protests from England. The 
allies would declare war upon her. The German Emperor 
would be named supreme chief of the combined fleets. First 
Great Britain would be starved. Finally the continental 



THE GREAT ^y AR 13 

troops would be able to debark; a <rieat battle, directed by 
the Emperor William in i)erson, woidd open the route to 
London, where the allies would enter in triumph. A treaty 
would still further increase the conquests. Germany would 
take a great part of the Enfrlish colonies of Africa and 
France receive a series of territories very apt otherwise to 
create for her everywhere immense difficulties. Eng:land 
broken, Germany would finally ai)i)ear as the universal 
power (Deutschland als Weltmacht). Directly or indi- 
rectly the entire world would be subject to her; the supreme 
task accomplished and, by the end of 1015, the first Pan- 
German Reichstag would' be held at Berlin, where all the 
German princes of the Confederated States woidd celebrate 
the oOOth anniversary of the rule of the HohenzoUerns over 
Brandenburg." 

Nothing so marks the bloated pride of this effusion, as 
the fact that Italy, from first to last, sends no delegates and 
receives no spoils; but is simply a powder monkey for her 
great ally. 

In the same year in which "Germania Triumphans" was 
published, the reactionaries in Great Britain who had 
obtained power upon the refusal of the House of Lords to 
enact Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill, came into colli- 
sion with the government of the I^'nited States and were 
obliged to settle the (juestions between Great Britain and 
Venezuela by the arbitration they had refused prior to the 
interposition of the great Republic; while in the Transvaal, 
the opponents of President Kruger were greatly weakened 
by the unsuccessful and indefensible Jameson raid, worked 
deiiunciatorially by the German Emjieror for all it was 
worth. Yet his telegram of congratulations to President 
Kruger, in the light of subsequent developments, seems to 
have been insincere; for when, four years later, the British 
government became involved in hostilities with the two 
small Dutch republics, after an interview with Joseph 
Chamberlain, Secretary for the Colonies, upon his return to 
German}' from Windsor, the Emperor declined to see Presi- 
dent Kruger, who had evidently come to Europe depending 
upon his sympathy. So far indeed had he swung round that 
he was credited with having drawn up a plan of campaign 



14 THE GREAT WAR 

for the conquest of the two Dutch republics by Great Bri- 
tain. 

This war was not waged, however, without serious pro- 
tests from within Britain itself; for the leader of the Lib- 
eral party, Sir Campbell Bannerman, opposed it earnestly 
and the present Prime Minister of Great Britain spoke 
against it, even at the risk of some personal injury at Bir- 
mingham, where Chamberlain was supreme; while the 
great Conservative barrister. Sir Edward Clark, in Parlia- 
ment subjected Chamberlain's political conduct in connec- 
tion with it to the severest criticism which could have been 
directed against it. Kitchener also threw all the weight of 
his influence in favor of the terms upon which the Boers 
had offered to surrender and, with Lord Milner's aid, 
defeated some of the unwise additions which Chamberlain 
sought to affix ; while, upon their return to power, the Lib- 
erals, as speedily as possible, secured to the population of 
South Africa a full measure of Home Rule. 

For the time being the German militarists were occupied 
with grander schemes and, had the German Emperor been 
able to work up the combination he strove to construct, for 
the dismemberment and division of China, which his agita- 
tion concerning "The Yellow Peril" was evidently aimed at, 
sufficient opportunity for the energies of Germany might 
have been provided for, and Europe, for some decades, 
spared the war which now began to be prophesied as a 
necessity for German expansion. While as head of the 
army contingents of Europe in China Germany loomed 
large; yet, with the return of the Chinese Indemnity by the 
United States, there was a pricking of the bubble. 

The chorus of the German militarists, however, by this 
tmie had attracted the attention of a great writer, Andre 
Cheradame, who in his "L'Europe at la Question 
D'Autriche", brought to notice one later to win great 
renown, Colonel von Bernardi, former Chief of Staff of the 
16th Corps, actually attached to the Grand Staff honored 
with particular favors, by William the Second, who gave, 
in a conference concerning the elements of modern war, at 
a meeting of the Military Society of Berlin, the true formula 
of German ambitions, as follows: — 



TEE GREAT AVAR 15 

'•We recognize that the German Empire, newly formed, 
has not yet attained the possible limit of the extension of her 
power. Her unification, her rebirth have imposed upon her 
new and imperious duties which, until now. Prussia has had 
to fulfill alone. We recognize that her historic mission has 
not yet terminated, since this mission consists in forming 
the kernel around which all the dispersed elements of the 
German race will come to group themselves; in extending 
her sphere of influence, in order to put it in harmony with 
her political limits by giving and assuring to 'Germanism' 
the place which is due her over the whole globe. In order 
to assure her this place, we should have the courage to 
occupy ourselves in new ways, where the torch of experience 
will not come to lighten us. where, apparently, at least, the 
greatest audacity will be necessary."' 

What these new ways might be, in which "the greatest 
audacity" would '*be necessary" was in the same year 
sketched out by R. Felix, in "(iermany at the Beginning of 
the Twentieth Century"; which publication the "All 
Deutcher Verband" recommended its members to read and 
discuss. The suggestions were: — 

"A great and adroit j^olicy will know how to divide the 
wars; each war should be conducted by itself, each adver- 
sary beaten down while alone. That will be possible with 
all except with France and Russia, who will certainly hold 
together; but, according to our military authorities, we can 
take the two at the same time upon our horns. Even the 
coalition a la Kaunitz, before which Bismarck trembled, and 
which can be exploited so well at Vienna, can be concjuered 
with our resources alone, if, without hesitation and without 
scruple, we school ourselves in the war to the greatest vio- 
lence of action. Then when the tnumphant German armies 
shall occupy the country from the Moldau to the Adriatic, 
it will be possible to simply expell the non-German inhabit- 
ants from this side of the Leith. They could be indemnified, 
but it Avould be necessary to clear them out and colonize 
their country with Germans. On the occasion of happen- 
ings as gi-eat as these, we should not hesitate to tear away 
from France and Russia great strips of land, to form the 
glacis of our east and west frontiers. It would be necessary, 
besides, to impose, as a condition of peace, that the indigen- 
ous inhabitants should abandon these provinces and should 
be indemnified by the conquered powers. There still we 
should colonize. That is our idea of the expansion of our 



16 THE GREAT AY AR 

frontiers in Europe. This expansion has become for us a 
necessity just as much as bread is necessary for our popula- 
tion, which increases so quickly." 

It must not be imagined that this propaganda moved 
without protest from within Germany itself. Not so. The 
Colmar Journal for instance was outspoken in its condemna- 
tion, declaring: — 

"Poor fools, say some sceptics. Yes, but dangerous fools, 
whose theories the German government should occupy itself 
in publicly denying, and whom it would be well to render 
powerless, in recalling them from their violences, in fashion 
calculated to do so, that there is a law within ; and without, 
the necessary of maintaining peace with neighboring coun- 
tries, whence flows all progress and prosperity for the peo- 
ple." 

But what steps would the government be (ible to take 
when, from place to place, the Kaiser kept repeating the 
cryptic, ominous phrase, 'Germany must have her place in 
the sun"? 

What did the Kaiser mean ? 

Von der Goltz and Bernhardi saw great political convul- 
sions impending in the not distant future. The first coun- 
selled unshakable fidelity to the Emperor ; the second, great 
audacity of action. The German army looked to the Em- 
peror and the German Emperor looked to the army and 
both spoke in mysterious phrases; but those who appealed 
to the masses spoke in wholly intelligible utterances for, 
whatever else might be said of "Germania Triumphans" 
and "Germany at the Commencement of the Twentieth 
Century" the authors were outspoken in their views. Arid, 
in this habit of looking beyond their own boundaries and 
planning for the annexation of other lands, men of great 
distinction and of the highest eminence took the lead. 

Cardinal Kopp, a personal friend of the Emperor, was an 
outspoken pan-German. The theologian Lezius, in address- 
ing a gathering of Protestant professors and students of 
theology, indicated very forcibly just what pan-Germanism 
meant for the non-Germans in Germany. He said that the 
Prussian Poles should have but three privileges : — "To pay 



TEE GREAT ^y AR 17 

taxes, serve in the army and shut their mouths." It is pos- 
sible, that, at this time, pan-Germanism meant only the 
incorporation of the Teutonic portion of Austria in the 
German Empire and, with the accession of 9,000,000 Cath- 
olics, the great Catholic prelate. Cardinal Kopp, could well 
afford to overlook the agitation, "Los von Rom'\ if it helped 
to bring about such a desirable condition of affairs, as 
would make the German Catholics of Germany about on a 
par with the Protestants, who otherwise were in control. 

But something more was needed as a gospel, and that was 
furnished by a Teutonized Englishman, Houston Stewart 
Chamberlain. 

Chanii)erlain\s book — ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth 
Century'', was a work of genius. In the audacity of the 
conception, the immensity of tlie grasp, the richness and 
variety of the knowledge with which he sustained his thesis, 
it was indeed an epoch-making work. Appearing in Ger- 
many at a time, 1901, when the politics of Germany and 
Great Britain were in accord, the book divided the world 
and its inhabitants into three classes: First, the Teutonic 
peoples, that is to say, the Celts, the Teutons, the Slavs 
and all those races of modern Europe from whom the peo- 
ples of modern Europe have sprung. Second, the Jews, 
who, according to him, constituted a great but alien and 
dangerous civilization. Third and last, such races as the 
Turks, Chinese and the inhabitants of the Mediteranean 
littoral, whom he designated as the people of the Chaos, 
hardly worth considering. Tlie argimient of the book was 
that the Teutons were just beginning to develop their civil- 
ization ; that it was to be a Christian civilization, freed from 
the dogma of the churches; that Christ was not of Jewish 
birth, but in all probability of Teutonic origin; and that 
his birth was, in a sense, the beginning of history. 

Lord Redesdale, who translated the book into English 
in 1912, declared that "the leit motif which runs through 
the whole book is the assertion of the superiority of the 
Teuton family to all the other races of the world." While 
the work of a scholar, the principle it sought to inculcate 
was as old as time, the principle of cast*. Yet it was not 
easily detected; for in it was not to be found any of the 



1^ THE GREAT WAR 

heady frothy stuff which filled the pages of "Germania 
Inmphans" and "Germany at the Beginning of the Twen- 
tieth Century." It held out a hand to the English, the Irish 
and the French, which, in part, was also extended to the 
Spaniards the Italian and the Russian of the northernmost 
portions of their respective countries, if they would only 
throw in their lot. Not even all of the Jews were excluded ; 
for the strictures upon Jews in general were in contrast to 
the encomiums showered upon the Sephardin Jews of Spain 
1 et It was to the Teutons that all must look for salvation.' 
They inferentially were "The Sons of God", even if, in some 
instances, they had "looked upon the daughters of men" and 
seen that "they were fair." 

A Daedelus might soar to such heights and return to 
earth; but when Nietsche attempted such a flight, his flop- 
pings soon became so frantic as to draw from his fellow 
German, Treitschke, the cold and acrid suggestion that he 
was afflicted with "folic des grandeures." 

Was Nietsche alone so afflicted? Were not the bulk of 
the upper classes infected, even if the better balanced brains 
of Cardinal Kopp, Baron von der Golst, General Bernhardi 
and Emperor William made, each, in his own way, a prac- 
tical application? J^ P ^^ 

There was a suspicion that the latter had, about the time 
of the Boer war, effected some kind of understandino- with 
the statesman who was thought to be the coming man in 
Great Britain, whereby, in consideration of a free hand in 
South Africa, upon the death of the Emperor Francis 
Joseph, a free hand would be allowed Germany in Central 
Europe in the absorption of the German part of Austro- 
Mungary. But Francis Joseph with his lengthened life 
stood in the way, and so new plans were evolved 

The defeat of Russia at the hands of Japan in 1905 
mcreased the confidence of Germany immensely; yet the 
debt which Japan owed to President Roosevelt was enor- 
mous, for had the war continued much longer nothing short 
of revolution in Russia could have saved Japan. Stopped 

ous v'J''-'^' ^Tr'"^ '^'' "^'''''^^ «f I^"««i- -as seri- 
ously impaired and knowing, as no others could know, how 
immensely superior in every military way Germany was to 



THE GREAT ^V AR 19 

Japan, the German Staff realized that, with Turkey at her 
heels and the British fleet pledg^ed not to interfere, nothing 
could stop the Teuton march through Central Europe. Such 
being the condition of affairs, it was not the wisest states- 
manship to have alarmed Great Britain with the continual 
growth of the German navy; for, coupled as it was with 
the declarations proceeding from the Emperor, it was dis- 
quieting. In the year 1900 the Emperor publicly pro- 
claimed at a great function: — 

"Our German Fatherland — May it in the future become, 
through the co-operation of princes and peoples, tiieir lords 
and their Burghers, as powerful, as strongly united and as 
extraordinary as the universal Roman Empire, so that in 
the future, one may say, not as in the old time: i'lvis 
Romanua sunt; but Ick bin ein Dentscher Burgher P'' 

Two years later, at Aix la Chapelle, the note was even 
louder : 

"It is to the Empire of the world, that the German genius 
aspires." 

If ever a work was calculated to fan a great flame, the 
Teutonized Englishman's "Foundations of the Nineteenth 
Century" was so constructed. Here were a people of the 
very greatest intelligence, industry and docility led by an 
aristocracy whose only aspiration was war, who, after over- 
throwing in succession two of the four great continental 
powers of Europe, saw the third overthrown by a people 
inferior to themselves, and were now invited by a literary 
genius, emanating from the fourth, to lead the world. But 
if Houston Stewart Ciuimberlain was inviting Germany to 
lead the world, Joseph Chamberlain was too thorough an 
Englishman not to be perturbed by these recurring practical 
illustrations of jireparation for the carrying into effect of 
Houston Stewart Chamberlain's doctrine. If Gennany had 
only been willing to make some concessions to British alarm 
over her fleet development, British politicians might not 
have been drawn toward France as distinctly, as from this 
time they were; for with Salisbury's death Joseph Chamber- 
lain could no longer restrain an ambition to lead the countiy. 

A man of parts and force, with a will and opinion of his 



20 THE GREAT WAR 

own and not enough culture to fly over the heads of the 
rank and file of the British gentry and mercantile classes, 
Joseph Chamberlain, manufacturer and family man, with 
his fine presence and good taste, suited the Conservatives 
more completely than the scholarly bachelor, Arthur Bal- 
four, the titular leader of the party, and, almost as if to 
dignify "Germania Triumphans", about the time prophesied 
for such action by that publication, dramatically resigned 
office and started a campaign against Free Trade. 

France and England drew closer together and the 
Moroccan Question took shape. 

Just before starting for Morocco in 1905, the German 
Emperor indicated the effect of Houston Stewart Cham- 
berlain's book in furthering the great ambition, by means 
of a much more moderate statement of policies, by asserting 
at Bremen : — 

"If later we must speak in history of a universal domina- 
tion by the Hohenzollern, of a universal German Empire, 
this domination must not be established by military con- 
quest. . . . God has called us to civilize the world. We are 
the missionaries of human progress." 

This said, he sailed for Tangiers, where he proclaimed the 
independence of the Moroccan Sultan and, after forcing 
the resignation of French Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
brought about a European Conference at Algeciras; where 
his government, after supporting his contentions, finally 
accepted a compromise, whereby the political control of 
Morocco by France and Spain was increased, in considera- 
tion of gain elsewhere by Germany, The accommodation 
was necessary, as Germany found all the Powers against 
her save Austria. Three years later she buckled Austria 
tightly to her by the support she gave that country in the 
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina against the protest 
of Russia and, as in the year previous, 1907, the Anglo- 
Russian accord over Persia had been established, Europe 
was now divided into two camps. Still in Great Britain 
there were protests against this close accord of democratic 
Britain and autocratic Russia; for many of the Liberals 
had enthusiastically applauded the challenging cry of their 



THE GREAT ^y AR 21 

Prime Minister, upon the arbitrary dissolution of the Duma 
by the Czar of Russia: — "The Duma is dead — long live the 
Duma"! And so, when in 1911 the Moroccan issue became 
so acute that it was denied necessary to put up some official 
to speak for the British Government, it was not the then 
Prime Minister Asquith, nor the Foreifm Secretary Sir 
Edward Grey, both Liberals of a somewhat Conservative 
type; but the Radical Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd 
George, who warned Germany, that in pressing France too 
far, she must expect to reckon with Great Britain. The 
hint was taken and a trade effected whereby a French Pro- 
tectorate of Morocco was recognized by Germany; for what, 
not a few Germans thought, was too cheap a return, in the 
acquisition of French territory in the Congo. In the same 
year Italy by her invasion of Tripoli indicated that tlie 
bonds which held her to the Triple Alliance were not of 
the strongest and, with the imprecations of both sides hurled 
at her, fought for her own hand in the ever widening game 
of grab. 

In the next year, 1912, came the event which precipi- 
tated the world war, the combination of the Balkan peoples 
against Turkey, the result of which was such an astounding 
surprise to all the chancelries of Europe, that prompt action 
was necessary, if schemes which had been hatching for 
3'ears were not to be abandoned. 

By 1912 the Germans, or the great mass of those who led 
them, had become thoroughly convinced of their innate 
superiority to the rest of mankind. So widely spread and 
firmly established was this conviction, that it was just as 
clearly discernible in those, who had been chased out of 
Germany and only in more tolerant countries been per- 
mitted to exercise these superior qualities, as in those who, 
within that great country, proclaimed in more intemperate 
language what Trietschke, Hummel, Woltman, Wirth, 
Haartmann and others had preached for years. But, in 
1912, two books appeared in style quite different; but each 
in its way striving to steel the Germans to the launching of 
the "Preventative Offensive War," which they were almost 
ready for. The first of these by Paul Rohrback has been 
translated by an eminent German scholar under the title 



22 THE GREAT ^V AR 

"German World Policies." It is temperately worded, well 
argued and supported by illustrations which powerfully 
assist the argument. 

Of the sincerity of this author, there is no occasion to 
doubt and, if the world could only accept his major premise, 
there would be no escape from the inferences he draws 
therefrom. The premise is as follows: 

''We start very consciously with the conviction, that we 
have been placed in the arena of the world to work out 
moral perfection, not only for ourselves, but for all man- 
kind." 

Here we have in simple phrase Houston Stewart Chamber- 
lain's Teutonic superiority maldng its inevitable advance 
and narrowed to the German people. Of what avail is it, 
after stating the above, to declare that the Anglo-Saxons are 
compelled "to make their decision between the two following 
propositions" : — 

"Will they reconcile themselves to seeing our interests in 
the world maintain themselves by the side of their own 
and come to an agreement with us concerning them? Or 
will they fight with force of arms to remain the sole mis- 
tress of the world?" 

Is it not apparent, to the most peace-loving disposition, 
that if, what the Germans are conscious of, viz., that they 
"have been placed in the arena of the world to work out 
moral perfection for all mankind", is true, it is necessary 
for the Germans to obtain the mastery of the world to 
ftccomplish their aim? 

That, in its last analysis, it is a gamble for power, is 
established by Mr. Eohrback himself, when he says : 

"We must, therefore, ask ourselves two questions: In 
the first place, how much can we stake on the endeavor to 
obtain for the German idea the greatest possible influence 
in the world; and, secondly, what are our national resources 
with which we can reckon politically; and, finally, what 
are the encumbrances and liens which are placed on them?" 

Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the great Prophet of 
Modern Germany, has declared that the conception which 



THE GREAT ^yAR 23 

Christendom has had of Christ is erroneous. So did Ma- 
homet, in his day. Houston Stewart ChambeHain has in 
preparation now, what is actually the German Koran. And 
just as the followers of Mahomet came, so the Germans will 
come with, in one hand their Koran and in the other the 
sword. Grant that it is a far better Koran than that of 
Mahomet, there is no escapinsf the conviction, that the 
scheme is to impose German Kultur on the world by force. 
That it is a war upon democracy by fanatics, led by an 
autocrat. 

The second book was by an author to whom allusion has 
been made before, General Friedrich von Bemhardi. 

The main difference between this book and that of Paul 
Kohrback lay in the callous candor with which Bernhardi 
discussed matters in "Germany and the Next War." 

Taking as his text the declaration of Heraclitus of 
Ephesus, "War is the father of all things", Bernhardi sum- 
moned to his aid every power of his mind to establish it 
as an irrefutable doctrine. 

In four chapters entitled — (1) "The Right to Make 
War": (2) "The Duty to Make War": (3) "Germany's 
Historic Mission": (4) World Power or Downfall" — he 
aimed to expand a quotation from the German historian 
Treitschke^ 

"The great elector laid the foundations of Prussia's power 
by successful and deliberately incurred wars. Frederick 
the Great followed in the steps of his glorious ancestor, and 
none of the wars which he fought had been forced upon 
him,"— 

while the animus of the book is displayed in a ruthless dis- 
regard of all the moralities of ciAnlization such as perhaps 
never has, since the Christian era, appeared in print. 
Here is how he speaks of France: — 

"In one way or another we must square our account with 
France if we wish for a free hand in our international 
policy. This is the first and foremost condition of a sound 
German policy, and since the hostility of France, once for 
all, cannot be removed by peaceful overtures, the matter 
must be settled by force of arms. France must be so com- 



24 TEE GREAT WAR 

pletely crushed that she can never again come across our 
path." 

By German apologists, it has been claimed, that General 
Bernhadi's book was better known outside of Germany than 
within; but we have seen, that the same views of the irre- 
pressible conflict and necessary acts of the greatest audacity 
had been preached by him for over a decade. Besides, in a 
later amplification of his ideas, entitled — "Our Future — A 
Word of Warning" — he asserts: 

"My book, 'Germany and the Next War,' has been 
reviewed by the press of all civilized nations. It has been 
translated into English and Swedish, and it has met in 
nearly all countries with unfavorable and frequently with 
malicious criticism. That has been its fate particularly in 
England and in the press influenced by that country. On 
the other hand, 'Germany and the Next War' has found 
support and recognition in many quarters, and particularly 
in the patriotic circles of the German Fatherland." 

He also declared that upon being asked to popularize his 
book by offering it to the public at a moderate price, he 
gladly did so. 

In 1913 General Bemhardi published his second book at 
one-fifth the price of the first, of which it is only a brief 
development brought up to date. 

Claiming that " — No other nation can point to achieve- 
ments comparable to those of Germany . . . No nation 
exists which thinks at the same time so clearly and so his- 
torically as does the German ; none is more free from preju- 
dice," — he illustrates his freedom from these trammels by 
the following: — 

"It can really not reasonably be expected that Germany, 
with her 65,000,000 inhabitants and her world-wide trade, 
should allow herself to be treated on a footing of equality 
with France with her 40,000,000 inhabitants. It can really 
not be expected that Germany should allow 45,000,000 inhab- 
itants of Great Britain (Celtic Scotchmen, Welshmen and 
Irishmen, side by side with Germanic Englishmen), to act 
as arbiters to the States of the old world and to exercise an 
absolute supremacy on the seas." 



TEE GREAT ^SWR 25 

And yet he rests the structure of his argument upon two 
pillars, neither of which are of purely Germanic origin, for 
one Kant was of Scotch extraction and the other Darwin, 
an Englishman. Indeed it is upon English authority that 
he rests his claim. 

•'Wherever we look in nature we find that war is a funda- 
mental law of development. This great veritv, which has 
been recognized in past ages, has been convincmglj^ demon- 
strated in modern times b}' Charles Darwin. He proved 
that nature is ruled by an unceasing struggle for existence, 
by the right of the stronger, and that this struggle, in 
its apparent cruelty, brings about a selection, eliminating 
the weak and unwholesome. ... It may, of course, happen 
that biologically weak nations combine, form a majority and 
vanquish a nation of greater vitality. However, history 
teaches us that their success will be only temporary. Greater 
vitality will vindicate itself and the united opponents will 
decline by abusing their power." 

Fully convinced that the Boers were held as part of the 
British Empire solely by force, he used them as an illus- 
tration. It never occurred to this grim soldier that a peo- 
ple could be held by trust reposed. To him, the history of 
the United States was a sealed book. It never dawned upon 
him, that admitting the truth of many of the criticisms, 
which he and other moulders of German thought showered 
upon England, and which could, in a somewhat fuller meas- 
ure than we of the United States would care to allow^, be 
directed against us also; yet, in its essence, that which 
divided our political philosophy from the modem political 
philosophy of Germany as expounded by Bernhardi and his 
school was that ours had some scruples, theirs none. 

The German militarists taught that to win Germany 
must stick at nothing. Subsequent events were to show that 
had Germany only observed some scruples, she must have 
emerged from the contest greatly strengthened; but, by her 
ruthless course from the outset, she continually raised up 
enemies against her, unwilling to submit to the doctrine, 
that her necessities permitted her to hack her way through 
the world to her i^lace in the sun, without any regard to the 
neutral throats she felt impelled to slit in her progress. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE INVASION OF FRANCE AND BELGIUM 

The overthrow of Turkey in 1913, by the Balkan Con- 
federation, was, to the militarists, and savants of Prussia, 
as General Bernhardi truly put it, "A Terrible Awakening." 
Neither he, nor any other German military authority, nor, 
for the matter of that, any European authority, believed for 
one instant, that the 700,000 Turkish troops, trained by 
that experienced Prussian soldier, von der Golst, could not 
be depended upon, to account for the 500,000, or at the most 
600,000 men, which represented about all that Bulgaria, 
Serbia, Greece and Montenegro could bring into the field, 
even if the Balkan peoples could be brought to act together, 
which was deemed an impossibility. But, what was deemed 
impossible happened. Turkey was overthrown and across, 
not only Austria's path to Saloniki, but also Germany's 
future path to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf, stretched the 
Balkan Confederation, capable of throwing into line of bat- 
tle half a million of fierce, trained fighters, conquerors of the 
Turks, the light of battle still in their eyes, the lust of battle 
for liberty still in their souls. If the "Drang nach Osten" 
was still to be retained as a policy, Serbia must immediately 
be barred from the Adriatic, and this despite the efforts of 
Russia, Austria backed by Germany accomplished; for 
neither France nor Great Britain was ready to engage in 
war to further expansions, they had warned as dangerous. 
The plan worked, Serbia failing to get what she expected 
was reluctant to deliver to Bulgaria -what Serbian troops had 
conquered. Bulgaria insisted. Greece sustained Serbia, for 
a consideration. War followed. Roumania intervened and 
defeated Bulgaria became permanently embittered. An- 
other year passed. Then came the bloody incident of the 
assassination of the Crown Prince of Austria and his wife. 
The opportunity was too good not to be worked to its utmost 
possibility, and upon Serbia demands were made, which 
practically ignored her independence, and yet, which Ger- 



THE GREAT AY AR 27 

manj^ insisted could not be brought before a European con- 
vocation of Powers. In vain the diplomats of Britain and 
the masses of Germany pled for this Conference, the Rulers 
of (Jermany were obdurate and it is for this reason that 
upon their heads justly rests all the blood that has been 
shed. The masses of Germany were for peace; but to almost 
all successful Germany, her military men, her savants, her 
journalists and clergy, the captains of her industry, which 
with leaps and bounds had won the admiration of the world 
of trade, the hour seemed striking. They had an excuse for 
war and they were prepared. The masses were as docile 
as the leaders were ardent. In men, material and temper 
the Nation seemed ripe for a great struggle and those at the 
summit probably realized, that, if they were not prepared to 
utilize the great instruments which had been fashioned since 
forty years, others were at hand who were. The German 
Emperor may have preferred peace obtained by a threat, 
rather than war in actuality; but in considering whether 
he should threaten war, looking back upon his own career, 
he must have remembered, that he had shown himself an 
undutiful son and must not be surprised if his own son 
showed himself such also. Indeed recent events had indi- 
cated that very son exerting an influence against his father's 
mouthpiece, the Chancellor. There might then be war 
within, if there was not war without. On the other hand, 
a firm front might again win a peaceful victory over Rus- 
sia, as it had done six years prior, a conquest distinctly per- 
mitted by the great Apostle of War, Bernhardi. In addi- 
tion, was it right, for his own people's sake, to risk the 
replacing of the "homme d' affaires" with the "fou 
furieux"? It was not only the military who w^ere for war, 
the upper classes were almost a unit for it. They had been 
taught for years that other people were denying to them 
their divine right, as the most perfect people of the world, 
to redeem it with their rule and, for the unprepared people 
of Great Britain and the United States, they had something 
like contempt, not having the least conception of the quick- 
ening power of voluntary service. 

It may be honestly believed that the commercial rivalries 
of the European nations and especially Germany and Eng- 



28 TEE GREAT WAR 

land contained in themselves the germ, which would have 
inevitably led to conflict if not adjusted in time; but as to 
what actually precipitated the conflict of 1914, it is useless 
to consider anything, but the declaration of Germany her- 
self, in which Great Britain is found acquitted of all blame 
and put on a par with herself in efforts to preserve peace; 
for on August 1st, 1914, in the declaration of war handed to 
Russia by the German Ambassador appears the following: 

"The Imperial Government has tried its best, from the 
beginning of the crisis, to bring it to a peaceful solution. 
Yielding to a desire M^iich had been expressed to him by 
his Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, his Majesty, the 
Emperor of Germany, in accord with England, was en- 
gaged IN accomplishing the kole of mediator between 

THE CABINETS OF ViENNA AND PeTROGRAD, whcU RuSsia, witll- 

out awaiting the result of this mediation, proceeded to the 
mobilization of its forces by land and sea. . . . His 
Majesty, the Emperor, my august sovereign, in the name of 
the empire, accepts the challenge and considers himself in 
the state of war with Russia." 

The German Ambassador and his Government were there- 
fore witnesses to England's claim, that she sought peace, 
until it became their interest to dispute it. 

But having announced the intention of warring against 
Russia for declining to demobilize at her command, why did 
not Germany bend the bulk of her efforts to that task ? 

It is true such a decision might have involved the resigna- 
tion of the heads of the Military Staff, who made the inva- 
sion of France through Belgium a sine qua non of their 
retention of office; but even so, their places could have been 
supplied, as they subsequently were, when their incompe- 
tence had been established. 

With all its military advantages, the invasion of Belgium 
was a terrific mistake. 

The wise, the politic, the statesmanlike course would have 
been to have made no demand whatsoever upon France or 
Belgium, and if the latter country, under such conditions, 
had been crazy enough to have attacked Germany, that 
country would have gained more than she possibly could 
attain by an advance into Belgium before such. 



TEE GREAT WAR 29 

With Belgium out of the war or in it on her own initia- 
tive, it would have been exceedingly difficult for any British 
government, and especially a Liberal Cabinet, dependent 
upon Radicals and Laborites, as well as Liberals, to have 
brought Great Britain in, and even if they had, to have 
forced her people to have contributed one-tenth the effort 
Germany's course engendered. France would have been 
constrained to have attacked Germany through Alsace and 
Lorraine and upon the first move of Belgium or France or 
England into Belgium, Liege and the powerful line of the 
Meuse could have been promptly seized and held. 

Looking at it, as a practical question, if not all of Xa- 
both's vineyard would have been acquired, the very best 
portion of it could, at a trifling price compared to what it 
cost Ahab in the blood of his own people. 

This view is sustained by high military authority and 
German at that. To quote : — 

"Germany's western frontier is exceedingly favorable for 
defense. Here a weak army can hold its own during a long 
time and inflict heavy losses upon the enemy. If the aggres- 
sor should endeavor to avoid the powerful Rhine front by 
marching through Belgium or through Switzerland, he 
would raise further enemies against himself and thus 
strengthen Germany." 

To go further into details, Great Britain's obligations 
with regard to the P'rench coast would not have been 
involved by the operations of the German fleet and armies 
against Russia and, even if the march to St. Petersburg 
would have taken much longer, than the estimated romp to 
Paris; yet if Finland could have been set afire with revolu- 
tion, the best ally among the neutrals, that Germany could 
have hoped to have drawn in, might have been secured; for 
Sweden naturally inclined to Germany. 

Another reason for this course was that in the French 
armies, which lay between Germany and Paris, in the opin- 
ion of the German Staff, they were destined to meet the best 
soldiers which could be arrayed against them; while, with 
regard to the Russians, it had been stated by one high in 
their councils — 



30 THE GREAT WAR 

•'Incapacity among the officers was general and hopeless. 
Again and over again victory was left to an inferior enemy. 
The Riisso-Turkish and the Russo-Japanese wars have 
proved that the Russian army can be defeated by smaller 
numbers." 

Lastly considered from the moral standpoint, as to what 
was due to those whom they had influenced to enter the 
gamble with them, an invasion of Courland would have 
saved Galicia and enabled Austria, even if her armies had 
been unable to reach Odessa, to have so intervened between 
Roumania and Russia as to have possibly brought in Rou- 
mania upon the side of the Central Powers, for a consider- 
ation, which the territory taken from Roumania by Russia 
in 1878 might have furnished. This, in its turn, might have 
brought in Bulgaria and Turkey earlier than they came in, 
and kept Italy neutral to the end. 

It is true that none of these Allies, under these condi- 
tions, would have become the abject dependents upon Ger- 
many that they have since. That is the real reason why a 
course having so many advantages was not adopted ; for the 
conquest of her Allies no less than the conquest of her 
opponents was a necessary part of the program of Ger- 
many's rulers. The wrong done Belgium, through the 
unprovoked invasion, was declared by the Chancellor done 
of necessity, but subsequent declarations, as well as the 
negotiations with Great Britain, indicated other aims, 
among them the colonies of France, whom Germany 
believed, and not without reason, incapable of withstanding 
the assault she was prepared to make, and whom, if not 
prostrated thereby to the last extremity, would, with Bel- 
gium, be deprived of the means of making munitions of 
war. At the same time, Germany's grand total would be 
increased by exactly the sum taken and, if the United States 
could be bluffed into an embargo, the war was won. 

Considered from a purely utilitarian view, the plan was 
promising and in the execution it was well carried out. 

The French were to be almost invited into Alsace. No 
defence worth considering was to be made to their advance. 
It was in upper Lorraine, in Luxemburg and on the Belgian 



rilE GREAT AXAR 31 

frontier, that Germany massed her troops and it was upon 
Belgfinm that she moved in force. By so doing she arrayed 
against herself the sentiment of the civilized world and all 
the force which Belginm could bring to bear upon the situ- 
ation. That, however, disturbed her but slightly, for she 
counted it as but six army corps of an inferior qualit3\ The 
British fleet, mobilized by Winston Churchill, without law 
and at his own risk, however, was a most unexpected and 
disturbing fact ; for, with the exception of eight first-class 
cruisers and a few auxiliaries, the German fleet was com- 
pletely bottled. 

Again, not even the ruthless precepts they had had 
instilled into them, line upon line and precept upon pre- 
cept, could, at the outset, bring the Germans upon Belgium 
with the necessary ferocity. The Belgian defense of Liege 
was gallant and touched to the quick all that was best and 
bravest in the foe. General Leman and his heroic 30,000 
Avere entitled to all the praise they earned in withstanding 
the German advance. The Belgian played his part better 
than the nameless French General who, about the same 
time, was entrusted with the advance into Alsace with about 
the same number of troops. Liege was, however, captured 
after a short resistance and the French advance in Alsace 
checked. 

Meanwhile, well posted on the outskirts of Belgium, 
awaiting the British expeditionary force. General Joffre 
prepared his line of battle to meet the great shock he knew 
was impending. 

If in him, the French did not produce a genius, they yet, 
in the estimation of the great Kitchener, had in command 
not only a great general, but also a great man. And Kitch- 
ener's opinion was of the highest ; for he, of all the mighty 
men, at that time, foresaw the full duration of the struggle 
and moved England to meet it in the measure with which 
she since has done so. Speaking for the Ministry he said, 
we must prepare for a struggle of at least three years. If 
at that time, we shall not have achieved victory, others will 
take our places. 



32 THE GREAT WAR 

As seen by the Military Correspondent of that paper 
which was to be his greatest critic, the situation was thus 
put: — 

"In the aggregate, France and her friends have on their 
hands twenty German army corps, and let us say eight divi- 
sions of cavalry. If each army corps has a reserve division 
with it — as we must prudently assume until we have evi- 
dence to the contrary — the aggregate strength of the enemy 
is approximately 1,275,000. The combatant strength is 
788,000 rifles, 65,000 sabres, 4,416 gims and light howitzers 
and 1,488 machine guns. For the main offensive stroke, 
however, only seventeen army corps are available, with an 
aggregate approximate strength of a million. We need not 
at present concern ourselves about the reserve field armies 
which are forming in the rear. Our immediate task is to 
meet and defeat the first line, with the certain knowledge 
that if we can even do no more than arrest its offensive, the 
German plan of campaign will collapse. There is no reason 
why we should not do it. France and the allies now at her 
side can place in line more men, sabres, gims and rifles than 
this German host. With Antwerp, Namur and Verdun 
strongly held, with the south apparently secure and with 
masses of reserves behind in strong supporting position, 
there is no reason why the French should not resist vic- 
toriously and drive the enemy back." 

In this interesting statement, we see the English concep- 
tion of strategy. To minds like Lord Northcliffe's and his 
sportsmanlike advisers, it is merely, more power behind and 
a bull like push, wherein "the hardest head bears langest 
oot." But, to the Germans and the Yankees, it is first, to 
so dispose the force as to have it fall where it is least 
expected or resistance weakest. To throw it relentlessly; 
but in place of only victoriously resisting and driving the 
enemy back, to overpower and crush, without counting the 
cost; and to relentlessly press the retreating foe. 

Sound as this last military conception is, to Captains like 
Lee and Joffre, it offers opportunities for good troops, even 
if in inferior numbers, to be used with effect, and so Joffre 
proved. 

Without regarding, in the slightest, the suggestion of The 
London Times that — 



THE GREAT ^\' AR 33 

"the chief danger was that the Belgian field army might be 
overwhelmed by von Emmich's army and a corps of cavalry, 
which have probably by this time crossed the Meuse close 
to the Dutch frontier, and will be soon marching on Lou- 
vaine." — 

General Joffre ordered General Pan, who had succeeded 
the incompetent French General, who had conducted the first 
invasion, to again advance into Alsace. Higher up Gen- 
erals Dubail and Castlenau also advanced. The combined 
armies may have amounted to 300,000 men. Higher up 
again. General Ruffey was posted on the Meuse above Ver- 
dun, with something like 160,000 men and above him Gen- 
eral Langle de Gary with about the same number at Sedan. 

Well into Belgium and, lying at right angle with the 
angle at Namur, was General Larenzac with 120,000 men, 
his right wing at about Dinant, his left at Charleroi, from 
which position north of the Sambre to Mons, stretched that 
portion of the British army 85,000 strong, which under Gen- 
eral French had reached the field in time to participate in 
the great battle now impending. Beyond in Belgium, the 
main portion of the Belgian army, reduced by the defense 
of Liege to about 100,000, were retiring upon Antwerp and, 
with some French Territorials and the garrisons of Namur 
and Maubeuge, made up all told for the Allies probably 
900,000 men. 

Using a portion of his force to hold back the Belgians 
and guard his lines and two corps for a wide enveloping 
movement against the British left, von Kluk was preparing 
to overwhelm and destroy it, and operating as he was, 
with fully 300,000 troops, he was thus able to bring to bear 
upon the British front at least 130,000 men to hold them 
with their attacks, until the 80,000 making their wide 
sweeping movement could attack their flank and rear. 

I^pon General Larenzac's army of 120,000 posted behind 
the fortress of Namur, with some support from its garrison 
and a portion of the Belgian army. General Bulow, with his 
entire army, 200,000, and half of von Hanson's army, 
100,000, was moving. Opposite the armies of Langle de 
Gary and Ruffey, totalling 320,000, were the remainder of 
von Haussen's army, the entire army of the Duke of Wur- 



34 THE GREAT ^Y AR 

temburg and half of the army of the Crown Prince, prob- 
ably 500,000 men. Further south again. Prince Euprecht 
of Bavaria commanded about 200,000, stretching down from 
Luxemburg into Lorraine. While, with probably no more 
than 120,000, General von Heeringen was retiring in Alsace, 
as he defended his retreat. A grand total of something like 
1,420,000, which independent cavalry brought full}^ up to a 
million and a half of troops, directed upon France by the 
German Chief of Staff von Moltke and designed to crush 
her completely, before the slower mobilization of Russia 
could make her influence felt upon the eastern frontier. 

General Joffre's plan to meet the situation, as far as he 
realized it, was with the 295,000 he had in Belgium, to hold 
his left flank firmly in place, while, with a thrust at the 
centre of the German line, made as their weaker left flank 
was simultaneously bent back, to envelop the German left, 
seize the bridges of the Rhine and separate the center and 
left from the right, whose line of communications would 
thereby be cut. 

General Joffre failed to effect his purpose. In the first 
place, not only were the German armies in the North in 
far greater force than had been estimated; but the French 
Commander in Chief was not served by all his subordinates 
with that ability, which alone could have carried into effect 
his plan. Generals Pau and Dubail advancing against 
General von Heeringen drove the Germans back to the 
Rhine in Alsace ; while General Castelnau, at the same time, 
penetrated well into Lorraine driving before him the Ger- 
man forces; but, when he was well in. Prince Ruprecht of 
Bavaria, heavily reinforced, came down upon his left flank 
and striking the somewhat exhausted French army of 120,- 
000 men with something like 200,000 crushed in the flank 
and sent it staggering back to the frontier, with casualties 
amounting to 40,000 and saved only from complete destruc- 
tion by the ability displayed by its general in extricating it 
and the conspicuous ability of one of its corps commanders. 
General Foch, together with the splendid behavior of the 
corps he led. 

Higher up in the Belgian Ardennes, the thrust in also 
failed; for, while Langle de Cary succeeded, Ruffey was 



THE GREAT ^y AR 35 

only saved from a disaster, by the superior generalship 
again of a corps commander, Sarrail ; while, on the angle, 
where Larenzac was posted, Xamur giving way in a few 
hours, that general fell back, exposing the right flank of the 
British armj^ and forcing it, after stubborn fighting, to 
retreat in the face of the enormous numbers threatening it. 

Thus, in the first great shock of battle, the Germans had 
been completely victorious and with the greatest vigor they 
pressed the retreating armies. The French had been forced 
out of Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine and all along the line 
French territory was being added to the two-thirds or more 
of valuable Belgian territor\' in the control of the Germans. 

On to Paris the victorious German right flank was swing- 
ing with apparently resistless force, to the complete bewil- 
derment of the experts calling out in the press for an 
inquiry as to why Xamur fell. 

But to achieve this great success in the West, through 
their enormous concentration there, the Germans had been 
forced to undergo some risks upon the eastern frontiers, 
along the doubly rectangular line of which they had dis- 
posed only six army corps, viz., 80,000 on the extreme 
eastern front, 40,000 on tiie northern boundary of Russian 
Poland and 120,000 on the western boundary, the nearest 
point which threatened Berlin. 

As Austria, in addition to the 120,000 men which made up 
her punitive expedition against Serbia, was known to have 
assembled a vast army in Galicia for the invasion of Russia, 
the above forces were, howover, considered sufficient. 

The Austrian army which assembled in Galicia has been 
estimated at from 800,000 to 1,250,000. It consisted of an 
army of six or seven corps at Cracow under command of 
the archduke Joseph Ferdinand; an army of about the same 
strength under General Dankl at the fortress Prezmysl; 
and another under General Auffenberg at Lemburg of about 
the same size; while a smaller army of only three corps was 
posted in the rear near the Carpathians. 

As opposed, the Russians, under General Ivanoff, con- 
sisted of four armies, one at Ivangorod under General Evert 
and another at the river Bug under General Plehve, each 
numbering about 200,000 men: while at Lutsk was General 



36 TEE GREAT AVAR 

Russky, with possibly 300,000 men, and on the Dniester, 
further south. General Brusiloff with about the same num- 
ber. In the northern sphere, the Russians under Generals 
Rennenkamp and Samsonoff, with armies of 120,000 each, 
were moving on East Prussia, 

By faulty manoeuvring the inefficient Austrian com- 
manders succeeded in bringing about a condition under 
which General Auffenberg's army was subjected alone to the 
attacks of Generals Russky and Brusiloff. Extending on 
the border from Brody to Tarnopol, it was there smitten 
upon the two wings and driven back with heavy losses to 
a front extending well in Galicia from Lemburg to Halicz. 
At the same time, the two smaller armies of the Germans 
in East Prussia were driven back with losses and East 
Prussia overrun by the invaders. This was something that 
Germany thought should be at once corrected and General 
Hindenberg, at the head of about 180,000 troops, was dis- 
patched against General Samsonoff, whose forces had been 
increased to about 200,000. Just what portion of the 
Western German force was withdrawn from France is not 
certain; but with at least a million and a half of troops 
remaining the German army invading France stretched 
from Belfort up above Verdun and thence across the river 
Meuse, to the river Somme, at which point, the British, upon 
the flank the Germans were seeking most determindedly to 
turn, were slightly relieved, through a vigorous thrust on 
their right by General Maunoury, one of General Larenzac's 
corps commanders, which drove back the Prussian Guard. 
Yet, while a brilliant action, this was but a slight affair 
when contrasted with the overwhelming defeat of General 
Samsonoff in East Prussia, where General Hindenberg, 
catching the unfortunate Russian commander tangled amid 
the Mazurian lakes, completely routed his army, capturing 
numbers of prisoners and destroying a mass of men and 
material. 

In spite, therefore, of the severe losses sustained by the 
Austrians under Auffenberg and the punitive expedition 
against Serbia, with something like 150,000 French, Belgian, 
British and Russian prisoners, swept in from both frontiers, 
the German armies invading France prepared to overwhelm 



TEE GREAT ^V AR 37 

the French and British, making their last stand within 
twenty miles of Paris, towards which still came von Kluk 
driving everything before him. 

On the sea, too, Beatty's brilliant dash into the Bight of 
Heligoland had been followed by three engagements, which 
indicated, that if, by the foresight and skill of Winston 
Churchill and Prince Louis of Battenberg, almost the entire 
German fleet had been bottled, the few afloat were officered 
and manned by the ablest fighters the British had encount- 
ered since the days of Decatur and Hull. 

Steaming boldh^ into the harbor at Zanzibar, the German 
cruiser had caught the inferior British cruiser Pegasus at 
anchor, put her out of action and escaped without injury; 
the auxiliary cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosser had gal- 
lantly sustained the fire of the British cruiser Highflyer 
until she sank under it; and the Cap Trafalgar had fought 
a creditable action with the Carmania, until she too was 
sunk. But the much heavier British cruiser Hampshire, 
somewheres off the Chinese coast, had come in contact with a 
vessel or vessels which had sent her limping into port Avith 
considerable damage and many wounded ; while, in the In- 
dian Ocean the Emden, in the Atlantic the Karlsruhe, and in 
the Pacific the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Xurnberg, Dresden 
and Leipsick were sinking British shipping in numbers 
sufficient to excite great and unreasonable discontent with 
the branch of the service which was admirably handled ; but 
unfortunately could neither be omniscient nor omnipotent. 

Meanwhile preparing for what he knew would be the 
decisive battle of the war, the great French Commander in 
Chief, General Joffre, ordered General Castelnau to fortify 
and hold a ridge to the east of Nancy on the Lorraine front, 
known as the Grand Couronne, and, with about 100,000 
men and an abundance of artillery. General Castelnau took 
up his position there; while Generals Dubail and Pau fell 
back, withdrawing from Alsace to a more easily defended 
line, from Belfort, north; and, from the troops which had 
invaded Alsace and others which had meanwhile been 
gathered. General Joffre prepared two new armies, which 
he placed respectively under the command of Generals Foch 



38 THE GREAT ^YAR 

and Maimoiiry, in rear of the continuation of his line, 
stretching from Verdun to Paris. 

To General Sarrail in place of General Euffey he entrusted 
the defence of Verdun. West of Sarrail Avas the army of 
General Langle de Gary. Farther west still, in the con- 
centric dip of the line, the new army entrusted to Foch. 
Then came General d'Esperey, who had replaced General 
Larenzac. Just below Paris was General French in com- 
mand of the British army, which had been reinforced and 
in spite of its losses was as strong as at the outset and 
possibly stronger. West again the other new army under 
Maunoury. 

Flushed with his success in the great battle of Metz, 
Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria, with some 300,000 men, 
assaulted the Grand Couronne; but under the fire of the 
French artillery, splendidly handled, his troops were 
mowed down in swaths, as, in solid formation, they 
advanced under the eye of their Emperor with intrepid 
courage to death and destruction, day after day; and, in 
the first days of September, General Joffre published his 
inspiring Order of the Day and the Battle of the Marne 
was on. 

Upon the extreme German right, General von Kluk, 
within twenty miles of Paris, and not believing it possible 
that the forces, which for two weeks he had been driving 
before him from the Belgian frontier, had any more fight 
in them, deflected his course to the left and pushed in at the 
centre, leaving but a single corps to guard his exposed 
flank. 

It was the opportunity General Joffre had been waiting 
for and, upon General von Kluk's exposed flank, Maunoury 
fell with fury, forcing the German general to again alter 
his disposition and face about to meet the assault, which 
was sweeping before it the force he had left to guard his 
flank. As he drew back the British army advanced and the 
French army on the right of the British also pressed for- 
ward against von Bulow, who had dispatched a portion of 
his force to assist von Kluk in the attempt to outflank 
Maunoury. This change of movement from south to west, 
on the right of the German line, is said by the experts to 



THE GREAT ^V AR 39 

have unduly stretched the German line just east of von 
Bulow's left wing, and, against the thinned line there Gen- 
eral P'och pressed resistlessly ; and to him, of all the generals 
engaged, the greatest credit is given for the great victoi-y 
which was won in the German retreat. But, as it was 
Maunoury's flank attack which stopped General von Kluk's 
attack on the centre, induced him to attempt instead to 
flank the attacker, and General Bulow to aid by a movement 
also to the rear and right, it is not strange that many give 
Maunoury as much credit as Foch. 

To Sarrail, who with inferior forces pressed back the 
Crown Prince and saved Verdun, also much praise is given. 
To d'Esperey some, and also to Castelnau, whose successful 
defense of the Grand Couronne redeemed the defeat he had 
experienced at Metz. 

But to the army of Langle de Cury, unbeaten from the 
outset of the war in every encounter in which it had been 
engaged and which, in the position assigned to it in the 
Battle of the Marne, not only held every foot of ground it 
was to defend, but actually advanced, even when Foch's 
right wing was forced back, only grudging criticism is 
given. 

As in so doing, this commander fully protected the gap 
between his left and Foch's right flank, into which the Ger- 
mans in their turn were endeavoring to press, it is evident 
that he must have materially assisted in the stretching of 
the German line, against which Foch pressed his left flank; 
and certain it is, that he carried out to the letter the Order 
of the Day : — 

"The time has come to advance at all costs, and to die 
where you stand, rather than give way." 

No matter, however, to whom most credit was due, the 
result of the desperate fighting all along the line was, that 
first von Kluk and then von Bulow and finally the entire 
German line fell back and the great offensive which was to 
completely crush France failed with heavy losses in men, 
material and prestige to the invaders. 



40 TEE GREAT WAR 

At about the same time, Lemberg and Halicz having 
been captured by the Russians, the retreating Austrian 
armies in Galicia effected a juncture with their left flank 
bent back to the junction of the rivers San and Vistula on 
the northern border of Galicia, their centre at Rawa Ruska 
and their right on the fortress Grodek, and with both flanks 
pressed back beyond Przmysl into which some three or 
more of their army corps found shelter, with heavy losses 
in men, material and organization, indeed almost routed, 
yielded to the foe almost the half of Galicia. 

If, therefore, the Germans might claim that at the Aisne 
they had stopped the retreat from the Mame and checked 
the French pursuit and still held some eight thousand 
square miles of the most valuable part of France, together 
with two-thirds of Belgium; j^et, as the Russians had seized 
two-thirds of Galicia; the punitive expedition into Serbia 
had been beaten back and the English fleet had been sinking 
German cruisers almost under the guns of Heligoland with- 
out loss ; in spite of Hindenberg's successes in East Prussia, 
the war was not progressing satisfactorily for the Germans. 
Nevertheless, Hindenberg was reorganizing the Austrian 
armies and, with two new German armies to strengthen 
them, was aiming at the invasion of Poland and the capture 
of Warsaw. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SAVING POWER OF TOLERANCE 

Although with the opening of October, 1914, it became 
apparent that the Allied French and British army had 
failed to force the Aisne and on the Eastern front the Rus- 
sians had been forced to give way to a certain extent, yet the 
situation had vastly improved as compared with the begin- 
ning of the previous month. The wonderful campaign of 
August, in spite of the terrible reverses to the Austrians, 
Avhich had given to Germany such a belt of French and 
Belgian territoi-y, at a cost of less than 10,000 German cas- 
ualties, according to their account, had been succeeded by 
the German defeat at the Marne, with losses of something 
like 125,000 men. Some of the German colonies had been 
occupied and the Japanese were beseiging Tsingtau. On 
the Western European front the French had pushed again 
into Alsace on their extreme right; while, with continual 
prolongations, they sought to turn the German right flank. 
On the left of General Maunoury's army a new army 
extended in a northwestward direction under the command 
of Castelnau, and beyond that again another under Maud- 
'huy, whose rise had even been more rapid than that of 
Foch, Maunoury or Sarrail. Northwest of Maud'huy, Gen- 
eral French was aiming to concentrate all his forces, now 
increased to almost double what he had originally under his 
command. Practically acknowledging the defeat of their 
original plan, by the supersession of General von Moltke 
with General Falkenhayne, the German staff attempted a 
new objective, the channel ports, Calais and Dunkirk; but 
these could not be proceeded against until Antwerp had been 
captured and the Belgian army in their rear disposed of. 
For reasons probably as distinctly political as military, 
Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria was entrusted with the task; 
but before it got under way one further attempt was made 
to capture Verdun, and, assisted by General Stranz, the 
Crown Prince of Germany at the head of some 300,000 men, 



42 THE GREAT ^V AR 

assaulted the fortress held b}^ General Sarrail, who had run 
the heavy guns out beyond their original position in impro- 
vised earthworks. All efforts failed, and Avith only the occu- 
pation of St. Mihiel, as the point of a deep salient into the 
French line, the attack was abandoned. 

For the Allies, while the French line was moving up from 
Noyon, it was of the utmost importance to hold Antwerp, 
against which the Germans were moving, but, as they drew 
nearer to Antwerp, the ajjprehensions of the Belgians grew 
apace. 

At the request of his colleagues in the British Cabinet 
and, with some 6,000 or 7,000 naval men organized by his 
own energy, Winston Churchill, thoroughly alive to the 
value of the psychological, sought to stiffen the Belgian 
defense, if for only a few days. 

An equal number of French of the same material Avere 
added to the British, and an English army corps landed at 
Ostend. 

The project had not only the support, but the unreserved 
approval of the army chiefs. It unquestionably held inac- 
tive two German army corjDS, which could haA^e been other- 
wise used to attack the channel ports, before the French line, 
moving up from Noyon, could have reached the sea and 
barred the way. In those few days the French and English 
line crept up, the retreating Belgians, then covered by the 
British corps, linked up Avith the Allied armies on their 
right and the British war craft on their left, and the line 
to the channel ports was closed to the Germans ; but the fall 
of Antwerp was such a disagreeable surprise to the British 
press, and the torpedoing of three old cruisers, at about the 
same time, so irritating, that a scapegoat had to be found, 
and, as Churchill's manners also had not been as pleasing 
as they should haA'e been to one or two great war corre- 
spondents, well accustomed to write up or clown the great 
men they met. upon the man by Avhose foresight and boldness 
the German fleet had been bottled at Kiel a torrent of criti- 
cism was poured. 

He was berated as an amateur meddling wuth what did 
not concern him. It was remembered that the First Sea 
Lord under him, whose nephew, as a British soldier, had 



TEE GREAT ^yAR 43 

sealed his devotion to his country with his death in battle, 
and whose two sons were serving with the fleet, nevertheless, 
had an Austrian name, and a campaign was started by the 
press against an official the whole navy supported as an 
excellent officer. Churchill's loyal support of his subordinate 
only added him to the list of those against whom the (Xorth- 
clitfe) i^ress was beginning to agitate with damnable itera- 
tion. The list, by indirection, included General Joffre and 
directly Lord Haldane, and was soon to include the great 
Kitchener. 

While all this was transpiring the Germans, under Hin- 
denberg, launched their first campaign against Warsaw. 
P'or this purj^ose Hindenberg had two German armies and 
three Austrian ones. Two of the foniier Austrians — Auf- 
feni)erg and Booverig — had been relieved of command, and 
as in those beleagured, slain and captured, the Austrian 
armies had been reduced to the amount of some 300,000 or 
more lost, the remaining armies, three in nuuiber, under 
General Dankl, Boehm von P>rmolli, and the Archduke, 
probably numbered something like 700.000 or 800.000 men. 

While General Dimuiitrieff. a Bulgar, who had achieved 
some reputation in the war between the Balkan peoples and 
Turkey, was given General Russky's former command, to 
the latter was entrusted the defense of Poland and Cour- 
land, into which latter province General Rennenkamp had 
been driven from East Prussia. 

Hindenberg. in this campaign, advanced almost up to 
Warsaw ; but from there was forced to fall back, and the 
Austrians, being left rather in the lurch, the army of Gen- 
eral Dankl suffered severely. 

In these battles General Russky out-generalled the great 
Hindenberg, and, as the result of this offensive. East Prus- 
sia was again invaded on the extreme eastern frontier, the 
centre of the Russian army advancing almost to the German 
boundary of Silesia and Posen. while, along the Carpathians 
almost to Cracow, Galicia was occupied by the Grand Duke 
Nicholas. 

In the same month the British army, increased to 180,000, 
the Belgian army numbering 45.000, and two French armies, 
under Maud'huy and cVUrbal, bloodily repulsed the German 



44 THE GREAT WAR 

attacks around Ypres. The fighting there was probably the 
fiercest which had up to this time occurred in the war, and, 
while the losses of the Allies reached, in the two months of 
October and November, 130,000, in the month of October 
alone the German casualties were by them reported at 279,- 
000, of which more than two-thirds were here inflicted, again 
under the eye of the German Emperor. 

But, although east and west the German invasion had 
again failed, two events happened at this time calculated to 
greatly hearten the Germans. The first, by long odds the 
most spectacular, was valued beyond its worth, valuable as 
it was to them. The second was for a short while actually 
deemed what would prove in the long run an injury to the 
German cause, which, however, German thoroughness and 
ability utilized enormously. 

The British admiralty had secured some successes. The 
Emden, under her gallant commander, Muller, had been 
overhauled, outclassed and sunk by the Australian cruiser 
Sydney. The Konigsberg, shut up in an African river by 
colliers sunk at the mouth and a squadron under Admiral 
Craddock, was hunting for the remainder of the Germans. 
The strength of this squadron was rather carelessly dis- 
closed by the press. It consisted of what in previous naval 
battles would have been accounted formidable vessels — the 
Good Hope, armored cruiser, 14,100 tons, mounting two 
9.2-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns; the Monmouth, 
armored cruiser, 9,800 tons, mounting fourteen 6-inch guns, 
and the Glasgow, a much newer but smaller cruiser, of 
4,800 tons, at least two knots swifter, but carrying only two 
6-inch and ten 4-inch gims. 

Off the coast of Chili this squadron, accompanied by a 
transport, encountered the squadron of Graf von Spee, con- 
sisting of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, sister ships, of 
11,420 tons each, whose batteries totalled sixteen 8.2-inch 
and twelve 5.9-inch guns; the Nurnberg and Dresden of 
3,544 tons each, adding twelve guns of 4.1-inch to the heavier 
guns above enumerated. In tonnage there was not much 
more than the difference of a thousand tons, the British 
squadron aggregating 28,700, the German, 29,770; but, in 



TEE GREAT WAR 45 

weight of metal discharged from a broadside, the latter had 
an advantage, and they were newer vessels. 

Either from over-confidence or sterling appreciation of 
the fact that, situated as the}' were, damage to the German 
ships was more important than serious damage to his own, 
rather than avoid. Craddock engaged under additional dis- 
advantages, himself on the skyline about an hour or so before 
dusk. The action was fought during a storm and ended in 
the darkness. The two largest vessels of the British squad- 
ron were sunk, the other escaped. The German vessels 
received very little injury. To the world at large the sink- 
ing of these two large vessels in those lonely waters at night, 
while a storm was raging, was an awe-inspiring event; but 
all Germany rang with exultation over this, the greatest 
defeat the British navy had experienced in a century. 

Synchronizing, as it did, with the entrance of Turkey in 
the war upon the side of Germany, it may have had some- 
thing to do with it. But whether so or not, Germany, as 
subsequent events indicated, could well afford the 414,000 
casualties among her best troops, to obtain the GOO.OOO or 
700.000 Turkish troops her leadership and training would 
make efficient; and so, in the early part of November, two 
offensives were started. Falkenhayne, with all the masses 
he could command in the West, driving furiously for the 
channel ports; while at the same time, with two new gen- 
erals, Mackensenn and Below, and a new army, Hindenberg 
stirred up the Austrians for an attack upon Poland. 

From November 1st to November 12th. with continued 
desperate assaults, the Germans hurled themselves against 
the French and British lines which protected Ypres. The 
position of the Belgians had been made secure by the flood- 
ing of the position in their front and upon the next sector 
the full fury of the assault was pressed; and there, in the 
opinion of high French authorities, nothing was more con- 
spicuously demonstrated than the value of Lord Haldane's 
Territorial Army, there withstanding the finest troops which 
Germany could bring against them, and measuring fully up 
to the best regulars in the French or English line. 

"While the thunder of this conflict in the West was still 
reverberating, Hindenberg pushed into Poland and, at the 



46 TEE GREAT ^V AR 

outset, with a force under Below at Kutnow, Avon a con- 
siderable victor}^, for which Hindenberg was made a Field 
Marshal. It Avas followed by a daring thrust on the part 
of Mackensenn, which almost succeeded, but which Russky 
foiled, thereby necessitating eA^ery effort upon the part of 
Mackensenn to extricate tAvo of his army corps, AA'hich the 
Russians almost succeeded in surrounding, but which finally 
cut their way out with heaA'y loss. 

In German East Africa and the Cameroons, meanAA'hile, 
the German forces Avere holding their own, and had it not 
been for the statemanship of Kitchener, a disaster might 
haA^e occurred in South Africa. There, as well as in India 
and Ireland, the Germans had counted confidently on dis- 
affection; but, AAath that trust in others and breadth of 
thought Avhich is the accompaniment of all true stateman- 
ship. Kitchener had delivered oA^er entirely to the greatest 
soldier he had ever faced in arms, the conduct of the defense 
of South Africa. Constitutional government granted the 
Boers and Home Rule secured thereby, had clinched the 
loyalty of Botha and the great majority of those, who 
hardly ten years previous, had stood out in arms, and they 
undertook the full responsibility for affairs. As Botha 
stated, in assuming the burden of affairs, German South 
Africa could have been invaded by Indian forces. Colonial 
forces or the British in South Africa; but the Imperial 
Government had asked the Union to do the Avork, and he 
declared he was proud to haA^e been asked. With fearless 
firmness and candor, he uncovered the treacherous neutrality 
of the Hertzog faction, showing that there was open but one 
of two courses, either loyalty and help or disloyalty and 
treason. Tolerance and trust extended in the past had its 
effect. The mass of the Boers rallied to his side, despite the 
arguments of such prominent South Africans as ex-Presi- 
dent Steyne, DeWet and Hertzog, of the Orange State, and 
Beyers of Transvaal. 

Botha's position, however, was extremely hazardous, for 
if there were but few whites in German South Africa, there 
Avere some and numerous well trained black troops, and an 
abundance of arms and munitions. In an endeaA^or to draw 
the disaffected element into touch with the Germans, Maritz, 



THE GREAT ^y AR 47 

a Boer officer, deserted, and, joining the Germans, led an in- 
vasion of Cape Colony. That was the signal. Under DeWet 
and Beyers the revolt broke out at home. In vain Botha 
appealed to Steyne and Hertzog. They stood apart, by their 
silence tacitly encouraging the rebels. With that far look 
ahead into the future, which the great alone can explore, 
Botha refused the aid of any of the British residents, and, 
arming Boer against Boer, at the first attack of his oppon- 
ents, refusing all proti'ers of parley, called upon them for 
an unconditional surrender. Then, falling upon Beyers 
with inconceivable celeritv, he overwhelmed his force, 
Beyers himself being drowned, as in his flight he crosse«i a 
river. Then the great South African turned upon that one 
of his former associates, who. in the eyes of almost all of 
the English, save Conan Doyle, and numbers of the Dutch, 
was esteemed a gi'eater warrior than himself, and DeWet, 
following the tactics upon which his fame had been erected, 
swiftly fled. 

Had he been allowed to move at any great length through 
the country, there is no telling what might have been the 
effect, for it was hardly more than a decade since, to the 
admiration of the world, he had circled South Africa, heart- 
ening his followers with his ubiquity and the fierce blows he 
struck, as he flashed from point to point. He was a great 
partisan leader, perhaps the greatest who has ever fought, 
and his flight was no indication that the cause he sustained 
was lost, for the longer the struggle could be maintained, 
the greater chance that the neutrals, Hertzog and Steyne 
would come in. But it was no British general who followed 
him over the wide veldt. It was a Boer, his superior in all 
the arts of war and chase in those regions of long distances 
and scattered habitations, and. with every double, fast on 
his flying traces came the relentless tracker, who would not 
be denied. Captured he was, and with his capture the rebel- 
lion collapsed. In the dark days just prior to the capture of 
DeWet, when the fate of South Africa hung in the balance, 
and with it a great rent in the empire seemed impending, 
the Tory statesman. Lord Milner, whose policies there had 
been set aside by the Liberal party of Great Britain in 



48 THE GREAT ^V AR 

1906. while now expressing admiration for the tolerance of 
the empire, asked in a public speech : 

"Whether a system so loosely tolerant as the British 
Imperial system could stand an enormous strain; whether 
the advantages w^hich we gained from tolerance, from our 
easy-goingness were sufficient to compensate for the weak- 
ness which arose from our very imperfect organization, from 
the fact that our empire was as loosely knit as it was?" 

Botha and his men had answered it, and, in the message 
he now sent tO' Great Britain, he indicated what a wise and 
understanding heart he possessed. He said : 

"I am sure my English friends will understand what is 
expedient when I tell them that continued denunciation of 
the rebels may wound just those whom I know Englishmen 
have no desire to wound. I mean the Dutch, who have been 
responsible for quelling this rebellion. The Loyalists have 
discharged a painful duty out of a stem sense of honor, and 
having relatives and friends often among the rebels, they 
regard the whole rebellion as a lamentable business upon 
which the curtain should be rung down with as little declam- 
ation, as little controversy and as little recrimination as pos- 
sible. To those who call for the infliction of severe penal- 
ties upon the ringleaders I wish to say: Be sure justice will 
be done. In due time courts will be constituted to deal with 
these men. For myself, personally, the last three months 
have provided the saddest experience of all my life. I can 
say the same for General Smuts, and, indeed, for every mem- 
ber of the government. The late war, our South African 
war, is but a thing of yesterday. You will understand my 
feelings and the feelings of the loyal commandos, when 
among the rebel dead we found, from time to time, men who 
had fought in our ranks during the dark days of that cam- 
paign. The loyal commandos have had a hard task to per- 
form and they have performed it. The cause of law and 
order has been and will be vindicated. Let that be enough. 
This is no time for exultation or for recrimination. Let us 
spare one another's feelings. Remember we have to live 
together in this land long after the war is ended." 

With this so well said, he turned to the task of conquering 
German South Africa. 

Meanwhile, in England, to meet the difficulties engendered 
by Turkey's entrance in the Avar upon the side of the Central 



THE GREAT ^V AR 49 

powers, and the threat of an attack upon Egypt and the con- 
sequent cutting of England's communication with the 
Dominions and with India, Winston Churchill, head of the 
British Admiralty, proi)Osed an attack upon the Darda- 
nelles, a forcing of the straits and a seizure of Constantino- 
ple. 

It was the suggestion of a genius. 

For the land portion of a combined force, the British 
Military Director at the War Office thought that there 
should be at least 60,000 men; but, in the opinion of the 
admiralty officials, the mere appearance of the British fleet 
at the straits, where they believed the forts were short of 
ammunition, would be the signal for a revolution in Con- 
stantinople. 

Lord Kitchener thought a greater number than 40,000 
troops would be required, and an immense effort was even 
then being made to send every available man to France. But 
the British minister telegraphed that the Prime Minister of 
Greece had jirojwsed to otter the co-operation of a Greek 
army corps of three divisions and that the King favored it. 
Whether he did or not, and whether the difference was 
entirely in the route they should take in getting to Constan- 
tinople, there was some evidence later to indicate that Rus- 
sia did not look with too friendly an eye on any Greek force 
approaching what she regarded as her especial prize, and a 
strategic conception of the very greatest value to the Allies 
was unimproved, when it almost certainly would have been 
successful. 

The Antwerp expedition, which the press could not under- 
stand, and Craddock's overwhelming defeat, which the press 
had helped to bring about, had obscured appreciation of the 
daring which had bottled the entire German fleet, with the 
exception of von Si>ee's squadron, and that even then a 
powerful British squadron of something like 76,000 tonnage, 
and mounting twelve 12-inch gims, against von Spee's six- 
teen 8.2-inch guns, was searching for the latter, was happily 
unknown to the press and public, and Sturdee was thus 
enabled to bring the smaller German squadron to battle. 

Early in December, like a clap from a clear sky, came the 
announcement that off the Falkland Islands the British 



50 THE GREAT WAR 

admiral had caught the squadron of von Spee and, sinking 
four, was in pursuit of the fifth, a result for which, if the 
insistent critics of the admiralty had only had sufficient tem- 
per to analyze it, Craddock's defeat had been a very great 
contributing cause, in inducing the Germans to keep 
together. 

But those who had criticised Churchill for Craddock's 
defeat, were loath to give him credit for this, the most com- 
plete and effective blow struck so far during the struggle, 
with the exception of the epoch-making Battle of the Marne, 
and so the daring stroke for the seizure of the straits of the 
Dardanelles was still delayed. 

An expedition from India, however, had landed at the 
head of the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal was being put 
in a state of defense. 

Germany had failed to crush France, but she had seized 
and was holding nine-tenths of Belgium and about 8,000 
square miles of the most important part of France, with 
regard to which, the munition supply of that country was 
added, instead of to France, to the great store of her enemy. 

Yet, if France was weakened thereby, such loss was more 
than counterbalanced by the steady increase in the power of 
the British Empire, freed by the victory of Sir Frederick 
Sturdee from further prey upon her far-extended lines of 
communication and expanding, under the amazing volunteer 
movement, to proportions beyond the conceptions of the 
world. 

If anything was wanted to help this wonderful patriotic 
movement, the idiotic Zeppelin warfare uj^on the cities of 
England kept it continually warm, and, with a loss at the 
end of 1914 of 850,000 in casualties, the Gennan staff now 
turned its attention to that strategy which had been dis- 
cussed in "Germania Triumphans" twelve years earlier, viz. : 
everything that German}^, Austria and Turkey could do to 
be brought to bear upon Russia. 

Russia, if she had not accomplished all that had been 
expected of her, and had made the task of the French and 
British unnecessarily hard with regard to the Balkans, yet 
had done most of the heavy work, and, with her great armies 



TEE GREAT ^V AR 51 

intact and on the edge of Germany, holding almost all of 
Galicia, she now called for action at the Dardanelles. 

By both the Allied and the Central powers a diplomatic 
play was made for the accession of Bulgaria and Greece, 
and, if as claimed, 40,000 men furnished by France and 
Great Britain would not have brought in Greece, it would 
seem as if it would have been good judgment to have fur- 
nished the number demanded, unless it was absolutely 
beyond the power of those two governments to furnish such. 
But, apparently, Great Britain and France would not con- 
sent to come to such conditions as Greece demanded to 
secure from her her treaty obligations to Serbia, and, mean- 
while, Germany was lending money to Bulgaria, a condition 
of affairs which indicated a closer accord than was safe for 
Serbia without help. 

What Great Britain and France could furnish to Greece 
in the way of troops, to sustain her entrance being put at 
40,000 men, was by the Greek staff deemed inadequate, and, 
if by lending to Bulgaria Germany had interrupted negotia- 
tions with Greece, which might have brought Bulgaria in 
on the side of the Entente, Germany had accomplislied a 
great deal. 

By inducing Austria to suspend her efforts against Serbia 
and bend all her energies against Russia, Gennany also not 
only secured a necessary force to assist her in her attack, 
but, by puffing up the Serbians, made them less amenable to 
the suggestions of the French and British. The consequence 
was that while preparations went on for the Russian drive, 
the effort to get the Balkan peoples together failed, or, at 
least, halted. 

The question then arose: could the fleet alone force the 
Dardanelles ? That was the question at the beginning of the 
year. 

It is all veiy well for a commission to state now that it 
would have been better to have used a land and sea force; 
but, if the land force was not available and a sea force w^as, 
it became an immense question as to the effect of a refusal 
to try it, in the face of a request from so important a mem- 
ber of the Allied forces as Russia was at that time. Refusal 



52 THE GREAT WAR 

to try might have brought Russia to a stop, and that, hap- 
pening in Januai-y, 1915, would have meant the victory of 
Germany. All these conditions have to be carefully weighed 
by any fair-minded investigator of the Dardanelles cam- 
paign. 

For fully five weeks Russia had been maintaining the 
brunt of the efforts of Germany, Austria and Turkey. The 
French effort, which had been enormous for three months 
and a half, had been, of necessity, slackened under the drain 
in men and material it had occasioned. The British had 
barely been able to make good their casualties, and both 
French and British felt it imperative to prepare for an 
offensive in the spring, to drive the Germans out of France 
and Belgium. The suggestion of an early attack on the 
Dardanelles was, therefore, one which presented to the 
minds of the French and British governments many difficul- 
ties. But no difficulty was as great as that which might arise 
from a disappointed Russia. The idea of the French gen- 
eral, Joffre, and veiy probably also General Kitchener, was 
that if the German loss, which had reached 850,000 in the 
first five months of the war, could be kept at 150,000 a month 
for a year, or, at most, a couple of years, Germany would be 
obliged to sue for peace. It was the policy of attrition. If 
Russia ceased her efforts it was at an end before Britain's 
strength could be attained. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE RECOURSE TO "GERMANIA TRIUMPHANS" 

With the opening of the year 1915, Russia, pressed by 
(irernian. Austrian and Turkish armies, requested action at 
the Danhinelles. The British Secretar}' of War dechired no 
troops were yet available for such an operation, and when 
it is recollected that of the forces sent to France from Mons 
to the Marne, and thence to the Aisne and Ypres, in repell- 
ing the assaults of the German hosts, something like 25 per 
cent, of the British had been killed, wounded and captured; 
that every one of the 180,000 men in line between the (ier- 
man armies and Calais was needed, and more; that, in addi- 
tion, the invasion of the Cameroons had to be pressed and 
East Africa defended and that Egypt, a point of vital inter- 
est in the communications of the empire, was threatened, not 
only by Turkey, but by all the ^rahommedan powers of 
Africa, in spite of the fact that from ever\' walk in life in 
unprecedented numbers, Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen 
and Colonials were volunteering for service, it was difficult 
to see from where the necessary land force for the Darda- 
nelles could be obtained. 

Yet it was a supreme question. Could Russia be denied 
the effort? Upon Russia, at this stage, almost every hope of 
the Allies depended. Growing by great and steady acces- 
sions, the vast forces of the British Empire were taking 
shape and would, in time, become of enormous effect, but 
time was essential to their full development. Upon Russia 
every effort of the Central powers was now concentrated. 
Twice had the Russian armies under Russky driven back the 
redoubted conqueror of Tannenberg, and the Grand Duke, 
at the same time, had crowded the Austrian armies back to 
the Carpathians. 

Now-, extended in a long line from the North Sea on the 
outskirts of Prussia, and occupying almost the whole of 
Galicia from Cracow to Bukowina, the Russians had, in 
small detachments, penetrated into the plains of Hungary, 



64 THE GREAT WAR 

where, if they could once pour in mass and effect a juncture 
with the Serbian armies to the West, the war would be mov- 
ing to a SAvift conclusion. 

But to effect this, an arrangement with Roumania was, at 
this stage, of the most extreme importance, and this Rus- 
sian and Roumanian political considerations rendered dif- 
ficult. Almost any concession that could have been made to 
Roumania should have been granted, as without such both 
flanks of the Russian grand army had to be protected, and 
the invasion of Hungary only carried out across the Car- 
pathians with the most costly frontal attacks. In addition, 
in the Caucasus, Russia had now to meet the invasion of five 
Turkish corps, or something like 200,000 men, in shattering 
two of which, among the mountain snows her own forces 
suffered; and so, beset on every side, she called upon her 
allies for something in the way of a diversion to relieve the 
strain to which she was subjected, and to enable her to push 
with all her strength against the crumbling forces of Aus- 
tria. 

If there was not available British or French troops, there 
was available the mighty forces of the great British navy, 
its officers chafijig for some opportunity to exert the enor- 
mous power of which they felt themselves capable and 
denied, by the prudent course of the German naval authori- 
ties, keeping the German fleet in harbor, except for an occa- 
sional dash out to harry the coast of Britain and scuttle 
back to port before the British ships could catch them. 

And just at this time, to add to the impression of Sir 
Frederick Doveton Sturdee's destruction of Graf von Spee's 
squadron, an even more powerful British squadron in the 
North Sea, under Sir David Beatty, consisting of five of the 
greatest battle cruisers afloat, three of which were from 26,- 
000 to 28,000 tons, and two of 17,000 tons, overhauled in the 
North Sea four great German cruisers, three of which were 
about on a par with the heaviest of the British, and the 
other about 2,000 tons lighter than the two inferior British 
vessels. 

While in tonnage, 90,240, to the British 115,200, and 
mounting but eight 12-inch and twenty 11-inch guns, to the 
twenty-four 13.5-inch and sixteen 12-inch guns, which con- 



TEE GREAT ^YAR 55 

stituted the heavy ordnance of their enemies, the Germans, 
in their secondarj^ batteries, disposed of twelve 8.2-inch and 
fort}'- four 5.9-inch guns, against the British twelve 6-inch 
and thirty-two 4-inch guns, and, in a sturdy stand-up fight, 
would not have had great odds against them ; but, in the 
headlong flight, in which they sped back to harbor, the 
Blucher, of 15,000 tons, was sunk and two of the finest 
cruisers of the German navy set on fire and damaged, ere the 
three remaining escaped. 

The encounter, therefore, increased the confidence of the 
British in their navy, drove the Germans to the plan of the 
submarine warfare only, and the British to the attack upon 
the Dardanelles, unsupported by any land force. 

AMiile the Allies, with a formidable fleet of older vessels 
with very heavy guns were bombarding the forts at the 
entrance of the strait, the Germans, under Hindenberg, were 
attacking l)oth flanks of tlie great Russian army in Courland 
and Bukowina. They drove Rennenkamp out of East Prus- 
sia, but were unsu'ccessful in their attempt at Prasnyz, 
northwest of WaiMaw, where the losses were heavy. But 
Rennenkamp's defeat had forced Russky to send him rein- 
forcements, and when the Austrians. under General Pflanzer, 
occupied Bukowina, and advancing further, captured Stan- 
islau, in Galicia, the Grand Duke Nicholas was also obliged 
to reinforce his left wing. This drew strength away from 
the point of attack in the Carpathians, and the London 
Times had to admit that the Germans had achieved some 
successes, yet, in the opinion of Lord Northcliff'e's greatest 
paper, the German strategy appeared "to be resolving itself 
into a succession of violent expensive and unproductive 
blows, delivered alternately on each front,'' with regard to 
which it expressed the opinion : 

•^If the German headquarter staff can derive any sincere 
satisfaction from their more recent attempt to hack through 
the Russian lines, we fail to discern the cause of their thank- 
fulness." 

Concerning the Dardanelles, the same paper declared the 
news "extremely favorable," and after reciting the entrance 



56 TEE GREAT WAR 

of the fleet into the straits and progress therein for four 
miles, continued as follows : 

"We have every reason to hope and believe that the task 
of forcing the Dardanelles, which the Allied fleets have so 
admirably begun, will be carried through successfully. 
The moment a way is forced through the Darda- 
nelles from end to end, Constantinople will lie at the mercy 
of the guns of the Allied fleets. ... It cannot be too 
often emphasized that the present attack on the Darda- 
nelles is an operation which, if completed, must have enor- 
mous influence upon every portion of the theatre of war. 
Kussia needs closer communications with the open sea, and 
she will get them. The Balkan kingdoms, who have been 
fed too long upon Gennan lies, will know where they stand 
when they hear the sound of the Allied guns. The other 
results wiiich must follow the clearing of the Dardanelles 
and the inevitable collapse of the Turks are immeasurable. 

THE ATTACK IS AN EXAMPLE OF FAR SEEING VISION OF A KIND 
WHICH THE ALLIES HAVE HITHERTO TOO OFTEN LACKED." 

Could endorsement of Churchill's view have gone further? 
But that was not all. 

General Sir Arthur Paget, on a special mission to the Bal- 
kans, sent a telegram to Earl Kitchener, at about the same 
time, that the operations at the Dardanelles had made so 
deep an impression, that all chances of Bulgaria intervening 
against the Entente was gone. 

The Germans, too, realized the terrible significance of this 
drive for Constantinople and, while preparing to crush Rus- 
sia, with magnificent energy, drew attention to France and 
Belgium. Near Soissons, in a fierce assault, they drove 
Maunoury's army across the Aisne with serious losses of men 
and guns, and what might have been a disaster was only 
saved by the prompt action of a Colonel Nivelle, later to 
rise to high station. In their attack upon the English at 
La Bassee, they failed to budge the stubborn islanders, 
almost invincible upon the defense, but they achieved their 
real purpose, for, rising to the fly cast, the British losing 
sight of the grand and incalculable possibilities at the Darda- 
nelles, and encouraged by the ignorant and opinionated 
press, fancied the opportunity had come to drive the Ger- 
mans out of Belgium, and, with a loss of 12,000, won the 



TEE GREAT WAR 57 

battle of Neuve Chappelle, which cost the Germans a few 
square miles and casualties as great or possibly greater. In 
Champagne also General crp^sperey inflicted a loss upon the 
Germans of some 15,000. But the results of these two efforts 
were trifling as compared to the possibilities at the Darda- 
nelles, in giving the Allies closer communications with the 
Russian front, where the Grand Duke's army had forced the 
Duklow, Luchow and Rosztoki Passes in the Carpathians 
and sent his Cossacks galloping into the plains of Hungary, 
while something like 80,000 prisoners had fallen into his 
hands. 

Russia indeed seemed on the eve of a colossal success. On 
the 21st of March the great Austrian fortress of Przmysl 
fell, and with it 130,000 Austrian prisoners and great quanti- 
ties of material and munitions. 

It was a dark hour for Germany, but her great captains 
did not quail, rather they bent themselves the more sternly 
to the task of striking down their greatest adversary while 
alone and out of touch with her Allies; for in such case the 
blow would be all the more crippling. 

On the other hand, with the first serious reverse to the 
war vessels in the straits, a change came over the attack, 
and no one but Churchill had any more heart for a strong 
off'ensive. A halting, desultory bombardment proceeded, 
while a land force was prepared and two months after the 
fleet had opened the attack, the land force, some 80,000 to 
100,000 in number, at thi'ee j^oints, forced a landing at terri- 
fic loss, if with magnificent gallantry. The French force at 
Kum Kale, which protected the right flank of the British 
force at Cape Hellas, withdrew, for some reason, and its 
commander, General d'Amade, was superseded in his com- 
mand, but the British and Colonials clung firmly to the 
bloody strips of land they had won. 

Again, to distract attention from the point of all points, 
where danger lay to their great plans, the Germans opened 
an attack upon the French line in Belgium with a gas cloud, 
which drove them back and, had it not been for the devoted 
courage of the Canadians in the British army at this point, 
might have given to the Germans the last bit of Belgium. 
But this the heroic behavior of the Canadians prevented, and 



68 THE GREAT WAR 

the British commander, being thus enabled to reinforce his 
line, reformed it, and the French, recovering, regained some 
of the gi'ound they had lost. 

Still, at Gallipoli everything for some ten days or two 
weeks was at a standstill, and by that time the German plans, 
having been perfected, Mackensenn began the great battle 
of the Dunajecc. 

Under a storm of shells he burst through the Russian 
lines, and the invasion of Hungary was at an end. 

Three days later Sir Ian Hamilton attempted to push up 
the Gallipoli peninsular, but apparently was not in sufficient 
force or lacked that which Mackensenn had had in abun- 
dance, heavy ordnance, such being only on the old war ves- 
sels there, which had been saved from further risk in the 
straits. 

AVhile the attack upon the Dardanelles, so supremely 
important for Russia, and, as she weakened, for her Allies, 
simmered down, Mackensenn, with 30,000 prisoners and 70 
guns captured from the Russians, vigorously pushed them 
back from the Carpathians to the line of the Vistula and the 
San, and, Avith these mighty, world-resounding blows being 
recorded, the military correspondent of the London Times, 
with his microscopic eye fiiTnly fastened upon Neuve Chap- 
pelle, declared: 

"The want of an unlimited supply of high explosives was a 
fatal bar to our success." 

Undoubtedly, with a greater supply of high explosives at 
the various points where they were needed in the Allied lines, 
a greater success might have been achieved, a lesser injury 
sustained, but the high explosive which was subsequently 
supplied, in all the quantity needed, did not entirely cure 
the difficulties that the Allies exiDerienced, and, while the 
paper was, therefore, deserving of credit in indicating one 
mode of greatly strengthening the armies, there was no 
necessity for it to have warred so persistently upon the great 
English general, to whom, more than any other individual, 
it was due, that in the last hour of stress and strain, the 
volunteers of Britain in amazing numbers and devoted cour- 



THE GREAT WAR 59 

age, were to stand in the breach for the civilization of the 
world. 

Holding up a considerable force of Turks in the Peninsu- 
lar, where they crept slowly and painfully forward, the 
British army at Gallipoli made possible the farther advance 
of the small British and Indian force which had occupied 
Basra, near the Persian Gulf. Also they rendered the Turk- 
ish attack upon the Suez Canal one easily repulsed, but a 
small British force at Aden was driven in to that city by 
the Turks. 

Instead of exerting every effort at the one point where 
success could have assisted the Russian armies, still falling 
back for lack of munitions, with the entrance of Italy in 
the war, upon the side of tlie Entente, a coalition government 
was formed in (ireat Britain, and Churchill's place in the 
admiralty was filled by the Conservative leader of former 
times. Mr. Balfour, who, with the new leader of that ptirty, 
Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. I^)ng, Mr. Austin Chamberlain and 
others joined the ministry. 

A very great man. but an even greater promiser. the hope 
of the Conservative party, the Radical, Lloyd George, uni- 
versally acknowledged to have done a mighty work in the 
accunuUating of munitions and the organizing of industrial 
effort in the supply of them, now gave out the key to suc- 
cess, munitions and still more munitions, with which to 
"blast a way to victory." 

In the midst of the confusion and change came the simple 
announcement that Botha had conquered German South 
Africa. 

So quietly and expeditiously had he disposed his forces, 
that the matter was entirely completed before the press had 
had a fair oi)portunity to advise him how it should be done. 

Through the early summer, while Lemburg, Lublin and 
Warsaw fell into the hands of the Germans, the Allied force 
pushed up a bit on the Gallipoli Peninsular, but could not 
surmount the height of AchiBaba, which dominated the tip, 
or the high ridge which barred the Australians higher up on 
the other edge. Finally, in August, a fresh force of some 
50,000 or more troops were dispatched to the Dardanelles. 



60 THE GREAT WAR 

In the opinion of the general in command, the force was 
just about half or a third of what reinforcements were 
needed. It apparently was most unfortunately commanded, 
and, in the execution of the well planned attack, incompe- 
tently led, but why the general in supreme command did not 
himself undertake this supremely important task, when he 
realized the incompetence of his subordinate, has not been 
shown. 

After attracting to itself the attention of the world and 
in some publications being proclaimed, in advance, a great 
success, the attack ended in failure and, abandoning further 
effort there, attention now was turned upon the offensive in 
France where, amply supplied with high explosives, and 
addressing themselves entirely to "the main," in place of 
"the subsidiary campaign," it was ardently hoped and be- 
lieved, the Allies would "blast a way to victory." 

Indeed, something had to be attempted, for Russia was 
staggering under the succession of blows which had been 
showered upon her since the month of May, and her losses 
in men, material and territory were stupendous. Not only 
all of Poland, but the greater part of Courland, Vilna, 
Kovno, Grodno, Minsk and Volhynia, a spread of land 
greater than one-half of France, had passed into the hands 
of the conquering Germans, who were almost in gunshot of 
the great city of Riga, which it was expected they would 
seize in a week or ten days, while in the South, by Christ- 
mas, it was anticipated the Austrians would reach Odessa, on 
the Black Sea. In prisoners alone, it was asserted, the Rus- 
sian armies had yielded up a million men. 

The force with which the French and British sought to 
open the offensive of September, 1915, has been variously 
estimated from 250,000 British and 900,000 French, to a lit- 
tle more than one-third that figure for the French. 

Under Generals Gough, Rawlinson, Castelnau and d'Ur- 
bal, the assault was made and was sufficiently successful to 
cause the Germans to suspend their efforts against Russia 
and bend all energies to resisting the attack. More than 27,- 
000 German prisoners were captured and a loss inflicted 
upon the Germans in killed and wounded of at least 100,000. 
Many heavy gims and field pieces, machine gims and muni- 



THE GREAT WAR 61 

tions also fell into the hands of the Allies, and at first their 
losses were slight, but both British and French troops 
advanced beyond what the staff had anticipated; the losses 
of both were extremely heavy, the gain in territory' trifling, 
and the British commander-in-chief raised to a peerage and 
removed to another field of service was relieved of the 
supremely important station he had held for a year and a 
month. 

At a cost in casualties amounting. l)y their published lists. 
to 2,148,979, with a loss of onl}^ a hundred or more square 
miles in Alsace, and their grasp on some 15,000 square miles 
upon the richest part of France and Belgium unshaken, in 
addition to a realm in Russia, Germany was now ready to 
move against Serbia and strike terror into all the Balkan 
peoples. 

Under Mackensenn, a force of Austro-Germans moved 
against the Serbian front, while the Bulgarians prepared to 
drive in from the East. All efforts to compose the political 
differences of the Balkan peoples in harmony with the i)ur- 
poi5es and exigencies of the Entente powers had failed. Even 
the offer of (\vprus to Greece, a most proper proposal, but 
received with indignation by an element in England, incapa- 
ble of understanding the gravity of the situation, or of ever 
yielding anything, they had set their jaws u|)on, was not 
sufficient to induce the Greeks to stand to their treaty obli- 
gations with Serbia, from and out of which Bulgarian ani- 
mosity had arisen; while their refusal to yield Kavala, later 
permitted by them to be stolen by the same power, made the 
concessions of Serbia unavailing. 

At the invitation of Venizelos, the Greek Prime Minister, 
it is true an Allied force landed at Saloniki, but almost im- 
mediately a perfunctory protest against the landing Avas 
made, while the officials at the same time expedited it. At 
the Dardanelles, however, inactive and stale, the French and 
British forces merely held up, as inactive, a large Turkish 
force and probably assisted the British general, Townshend, 
in Mesopotamia, with a mixed Anglo-Indian force, to drive 
the Turks out of Kut El Amara on the Tigris. 



62 THE GREAT WAR 

Both Britain and Russia acknowledged the defeat of their 
campaigns for the year in the removal of the Grand Duke 
Nicholas from the command of all the armies of Russia and 
his dispatch to the comparatively small field of the Cau- 
casus, and by the discussion in the British parliament con- 
cerning the removal of the British troops from the Darda- 
nelles, which, while still delayed, brought about the resigna- 
tion of Winston Churchill of the unimportant office he had 
held since his resignation of the admiralty. 

Why there had been such persistent enmity and criticism 
of the most efficient head the British navy has had, so far 
in the war, was and is an interesting question. Judged abso- 
lutely by published utterances of his harshest critics, he 
possessed some rare qualities for his high station. Without 
the slightest taint of questionable pecuniary gain from his 
official position, never accused of nepotism, throughout an 
administration of the navy, more capable than any which has 
succeeded it, fiercely, wildly and foolishly denounced for not 
resorting to extreme measures by those whose clamor for 
such was completely and instantly stilled by the grim 
threat of Gei-man reprisals, it has been calmly stated by 
excellent, cultured English gentlemen, as if conclusive of 
the question, that in "ratting" from the Conservative to the 
Liberal party in 1905, this gi'andson of the Duke of Marl- 
borough was such a renegade to what the English Book of 
Common Prayer designates as "our betters," that he actually 
"revealed the secrets or his class." 

Now, as a major in the army, he parted with the govern- 
ment, leaving to them this excellent piece of advice : "Let us 
look after the war and after the war will look after itself." 

It was the darkest day for the Allies. Earl Kitchener 
visited Gallipoli to decide whether the forces there should 
be withdrawn; and, realizing that this was only delayed, 
the Turks hurried forces East and catching General Towns- 
hend's small army within twenty miles of Bagdad outnum- 
bered it and drove it back in retreat to Kut El Amara, 
where, with a third or more of his force, he was at once 
surrounded. 

Deep into Russia and still with their strong grip sucking 
the strength out of France and Belgium, the long line of 



THE GREAT WAR 63 

German armies faced their foes far from their own boimd- 
rievS, save in Alsace. 

Broken, shattered and streaming into Albania, after a 
most heroic resistance, the Serbian army abandoned Serbia 
to the Bulgarians and Austrians. Back to Saloniki fell the 
French and British, who had advanced to their support, 
and, at last, to the great relief of the British public and 
also, quite possibly, to the Turks and Germans, the entire 
British and French forces were withdrawn from the Gal- 
lipoli peninsular with scarcely a casualty. Admirable as 
was the efficiency of those conducting this marvelous retreat, 
it never seems to have crossed the minds of the eulogists of 
it. that it may have been as satisfactory a performance to 
the German Staff as to themselves; for it made impossible 
the forcing of tiie passage of the Dardanelles, so acutely 
dangerous to their main plan of World Power. 

And now, with their casualties amounting to 2,627,085, 
the Government at Berlin commenced to throw out arrogant 
intimations of their willingness to entertain peace pro- 
posals from their adversaries. 

To blaze the great broad path to Constantinople, over 
shattered Serbia, had, in the two months with which they 
had paved it, cost the greater Germany in casualties 375,771 
men, more than three times the loss Great Britain had expe- 
rienced at the Dardanelles and all fronts during the same 
period, now having enrolled soldiers to the amount of 
5,000,000. Germany therefore was in just the position to 
treat for peace. 

Although all their larger vessels had been driven from 
the seas, through their submarine campaign, against the 
excesses of which the United States was still patiently pro- 
testing, the Germans had inflicted upon the British a loss of 
about 200,000 tons in war vessels of the older class and a 
very much heavier loss in merchant shipping. French, 
Italians and Russians had also suffered from the submarines 
as well as Austria and Turkey from English submarines. 
But the German submarines had also sent to bottom, 
Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and American 
neutrals; while they themselves had sustained a loss in war 
vessels of something like 100,000 tons, by British gunfire. 



64 THE GREAT WAR 

and from the British blockade the German people were 
undoubtedly suffering. 

It was the time of all times for the Germans to have 
shown moderation. Situated as they were, they could well 
have afforded to have brought all the neutrals to their side 
by such offers as would, at that time, have appeared mag- 
nanimous. To Belgium, her ravished territory with an 
indemnity, to France, hers also, with the offer of a plebiscite 
in Alsace and Lorraine under certain conditions by which 
the inhabitants would have been afforded an opportunity 
to decide their nationality. They could have refrained from 
insisting upon the return of all their colonies ; have induced 
Austria to yield to Italy the strip that country had seized, 
and to Russia, Ruthenia, and persuaded Turkey to have left 
with Great Britain that portion of Mesopotamia occupied 
below Bagdad; only insisting, that in the restoration of 
Serbian territory that portion of Macedonia she had agreed 
should be Bulgarian should remain such, together with the 
small bit to the extreme East between the Danube and the 
Timok rivers, and securing for Serbia an outlet on the 
Adriatic at Durazzo in exchange, and Skutari to Monte- 
negro in exchange for Mt. Loftchen to Austria. To the 
world sick of war and to the great Republic of America 
striving for peace, these would have seemed wonderful con- 
cessions for the victors; for few would have realized then 
what a world would have still remained to Germany. 

Absolutely dependent upon her genius of organization, 
her allies, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey, would have been 
as wax in her hands. Penetrated and exploited by German 
industry and skill on the outskirts of the enriched and 
strengthened Turkish dominion, Persia, Egypt, Abysinia 
and even the Soudan would have felt the touch of a new 
and strange power stirring; and, in ten years, the German 
Empire could have overwhelmed the world in arms, had it 
not been permitted to dominate it in peace with its ideals. 

But with their devouring ambition to emulate the British 
in empire building, the Germans lacked one singular British 
trait, continually appearing in the leaders of that most 
remarkable people, when least expected — "surprise at their 
own moderation." 



THE GREAT ^YAR 65 

For that great blend of the Teuton and the Celt, which 
had blocked their march into France and in consequence 
been proclaimed their one foe, the militarists of Germany 
experienced an intense hate and burned with the desire to 
bring Great Britain to her knees as a suppliant for peace. 
Therefore terms of peace the Germans would not state; 
such must be asked of them, they insisted. Meanwhile that 
slow-moving, stumbling but persistent and tenacious people, 
undismayed by zeppelins and submarines, held firmly to the 
blockade which if slowly and imperfectly, yet to some extent 
weakened their adversary and gathering together the 
5,000,000 of their sons who had freely offered their lives for 
their country's cause, prepared to array them against the 
best that Germany could bring into the field. 



CHAPTER V. 

VERDUN AND "DER TAG" 

With the opening of the new year in January, 1916, the 
British Government addressed itself to the work in hand 
with those ceremonies, in the distribution of honors which 
for generations have excited the lively interest, the undis- 
guised amusement and the unslaked envy of a great portion 
of the world. Upon the Czar, whose armies rent and riven 
had been driven back hundreds of miles within their own 
boundaries, was conferred the appointment of a British 
Field Marshal. 

With ponderous politeness, the London Times declared it 
to be — 

"a happy compliment, not only to the part which his Impe- 
rial Majesty has played in the war, but also to the valor of 
his armies." 

With some assurance, the paper also added, that the honor 
was "especially gratifying to all the Allied nations." 

To Lord Curzon and the Duke of Devonshire were given 
the Garter, in the opinion of The Times, for "services well 
earned"; and the appointment of two Labor Members, Mr. 
Crooks and Mr. Barnes, as Members of the Privy Council 
was also commended. But, in the elevation of Admiral 
Sir Charles Beresford to the House of Lords as a Baron; 
while upon Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee, 
who, in the annihilation of the entire squadron of Graf von 
Spee, had won for England the most decisive and valuable 
victory achieved by an English force on land or sea during 
the whole progress of the war, was bestowed a Baronetcy, it 
saw no occasion for comment. 

Winter held the main armies in its clutch; but on the 
outer edges to the Southeast, Sir John Nixon, Commander 
in Chief of the Mesopotamian expedition, was relieved of his 
command, which was entrusted to Sir Percy Lake, under 
whose orders General Aylmer advanced up the river Tigris 



THE GREAT Vi" AR 67 

to succor the beseiged General Townshend. And while at 
Saloniki the French General Sarrail was placed in supreme 
command of the French and British forces there, the 
Austrians moved into Montenegro and seizing Mt. Loftchen, 
which dominated Cattaro, proceeded to overrun the little 
country. 

In the first month of 1916 little or nothing of importance 
transpired. The Russians had pushed back into a portion 
of Galicia and seized about 3,500 square miles of Austrian 
territory in addition to the strip of about 500 from which 
they had never been dislodged since the first offensive of 
1914; but elsewhere there was no movement of any conse- 
quence, save the driving into Spanish Africa of the rem- 
nants of the German forces in the Cameroons, which the 
united efforts of the French and British expeditionary 
forces accomplished in this month. 

In German East Africa, however, not only had no pro- 
gress been made, but in British East Africa, adjoining, the 
British under (ieneral Smith Dorrien were defending their 
own frontier from invasion. This general, having a little 
later been relieved on account of ill health, the Boer Gen- 
eral Smuts was asked to take command and accepted. In 
February' the somewhat stagnant condition of affairs was 
altered by a heavy blow inflicted upon the Turks in the 
Caucasus region by the Russians. Breaking their center, 
the army of the Grand Duke Nicholas pursued them to 
Erzrum, which he canned by assault, inflicting a loss upon 
the Turks of about 35,000 men killed, wounded and pris- 
oners, and a hundred guns and a considerable amount of 
munitions of war captured. An energetic pursuit of the 
defeated Turkish army put almost all of Armenia under 
Russian control. To the south the British expedition up the 
Tigris did not seem, however, to make much progress in the 
attempt to relieve General Townshend and with a great 
space of country still between the Russian and the British 
armies, the Turks prevented a juncture, which might have 
injured seriously the Central Powers. 

All these encounters on the outskirts nevertheless paled 
into insignificance, in the light of the great assault the Ger- 
man Crown Prince now made upon Verdun; for, advised 



68 THE GREAT WAR 

by General Haseler, and supplied with 400,000 troops, the 
heir to the Imperial throne of Germany now essayed to 
storm France's greatest fortress and convince that country 
of the uselessness of any further continuance of the struggle 
against such invincible a foe as Germany. 

At the time, Verdun was defended by General Herr in 
command of a section of the right wing of General Langle 
de Gary, with barely 80,000 men; but as soon as the full 
magnitude of the attack developed. General Petain was put 
in command of the defending force, increased to 250,000. 

At the opening of the assault, in the first week from Feb- 
ruary 21st to February 28th, the German advance was 
ominous; but .with arrival of reinforcements and the 
assumption of the command by Petain, the German assault 
was checked and thereafter simply furnished a means of 
exhausting the German army to a greater extent than the 
French. 

As through the weeks and months, attack and counter 
attack followed one another over the shell torn area, wonder 
was expressed why the British did not in their turn attack 
the German lines opposed to them, from Ypres to the 
Somme. They were quite ready to do so; but there were 
good reasons why they did not. General Joifre did not wish 
them to ; for while steadily increasing in strength along the 
eighty miles they held, they as yet numbered but 430,000 
troops as opposed to 460,000 Germans on the line and others 
in reserve, and, while the Irish rebellion was soon crushed, 
there was an indisposition to denude Ireland and England 
of all the best trained troops; and so all through March and 
April the hammering continued at Verdun, concentrating 
attention on that spot and only distracted briefly by a small 
event in Mesopotamia, which, nevertheless, aroused great 
chagrin in England. This was the surrender at Kut El 
Amara of General Townshend with 3,000 British and 6,000 
Indian troops after a seige of 143 days, the expedition under 
Sir Percy Lake having failed to relieve him. As he had 
shown distinct ability, he was a loss; and that for a couple 
of months or more an expeditionary force had been within 
twenty miles of him and yet unable to get in touch with him 



THE GREAT ^y AR 69 

looked like poor generalship upon the parts of Generals 
Aylmer or Lake. 

In contrast upon the arrival of General Smuts, matters in 
East Africa took on a different complexion and this difficult 
piece of work was now steadily progressing to a completion. 
Yet here as everywhere the Germans showed themselves to 
be masterly organizers. Under their leadership Austrians, 
Turks and Bulgarians rose to a pitch of efficiency that with- 
out such they lacked, and this was the same case with the 
warlike negroes of East xVfrica. 

The war had now proceeded a sufficiently long time for 
some estimate of the opposing soldiery to be made and, with 
the excei)tion of the French, there were as yet no troops 
quite up to the Germans. To put it as accurately as such 
a thing could be put at, the French line was perhaps not 
quite as good; but from the divisional commanders up. it 
was probably superior. In defense the British were fully 
up and possibly slightly superior to either French or Ger- 
mans; but in the offensive tlie inexperience of their officers 
became at once nuirked. But the British were adapting 
themselves to tlie necessities of the mammoth war. Slowly 
it is true, in comparison with the early decisive action of 
the French military authorities, which had so swiftly raised 
the commanders of the armies of that nation to the very 
higliest excellence, the British were yet, to some degree, 
weeding out the incapables from the stations to which social 
influence and qualities essentially manly if not supremely 
mental had elevated these. In valor the bulk of these were 
all that could be desired, and, to contend with and nde infe- 
rior races, not lacking the requisit-es; but hardly capable of 
contending with such scientific fighters and manoeuverers as 
the Germans. Living pretty strictly up to the rule laid 
down by that admirable specimen of the Briton of former 
days, Lord Wolsely, that the best way for a young officer to 
rise to distinction was by trying to get killed, they were in 
this most materially assisted by their foes, and the loss of 
officers had been very heavy. But now, on the fighting line 
in France, a great army was in every respect preparing itself 
to meet the Germans and fight the issue out. 



70 THE GREAT WAR 

On the sea, the persistance of President Wilson had at 
last secured a modification of the submarine warfare, and 
the retirement from command of Admiral von Tirpitz. 

In the month of May, the third month of the determined 
battle at Verdun, the Austrians also launched an offensive 
against the Italian front and, at first, carried everything 
before them in their rush. Conditions looked far from 
encouraging to the Entente ; for the Germans seemed creep- 
ing, if slowly, yet nearer and nearer to Verdun, and the 
fact that declarations were occasionally being made, that its 
capture after all would not be a matter of much importance 
sounded ominous, especially as the Austrian movement 
looked very much like an effort at the same time to get into 
the south of France across northern Italy. It is true, 
according to the Allies, the attack upon Verdun had been 
very costly to the Germans ; but, according to the Germans, 
the French were through it being bled to death. Yet two 
facts were indisputable, the first, that their approach to it 
was more and more retarded in the months that past, while 
their casualties steadily rose at the same time. 

From 35,198 in February and 63,545 in March, the Ger- 
man loss rose to 91,162 in April; while, in their peculiarly 
arranged lists of casualties, although the number of pris- 
oners lost to the enemy never reached 2,000, varying from 
1,345 in February, 1,725 in March and 1,221 in April, the 
"missing" reported in the same months steadily rose from 
2,017 in February to 6,217 in April. 

It was evidently in connection with the attack upon 
Verdun, that in May the Austrian army, 300,000 strong, 
swept down the Trentine upon the Italians and in the first 
few days carried everything before them, capturing over 
23,000 prisoners and driving the Italians out of heights and 
from passes it had taken them a year to win with con- 
tinuous fighting. The Austrian force opposed to the Italians 
upon all fronts had, up to this time, been estimated at about 
350,000; but it now rose to at least 600,000 and probably 
more and, coincidently with the attack, the German assault 
upon Verdun flamed up with greater fury. Both French 
and Italians rallied to the defense and the fighting on both 
fronts became desperate. 



THE GREAT WAR 71 

In the far East, mindful of the danger threatened by the 
efforts of the British below Kut El Amara under General 
Gorringe and the Russians moving west from Persia 
under General Baratoff, to aid the force of about 200,000 
Turks opposing them, a mixed Austro-German division was 
dispatched to Bagdad and, while, in these far separated 
quarters of the world, the contending forces of soldiery 
faced each other, on June 30th occurred the greatest naval 
battle of the world's history. 

In comnumd of a squadron of six battle cruisers and four 
of the swiftest battleships of Britain, in tonnage aggrega- 
ting 254,000 tons and mounting thirty-two 15-inch, thirty- 
two 13.5-inch and sixteen 12-inch guns, accompanied by the 
usual complement of light cruisers and torpedo craft. Sir 
David Beatty sighted the battle cruiser squadron of von 
Hipper, five in number, of a tonnage amounting to 131,280 
and mounting forty 12-inch guns, also attended by light 
cruisers and torpedo craft. 

Off the northwestern coast of Denmark at 3 :48 p. m. the 
squadrons engaged, as the Germans turned southeast, steer- 
ing for a junction with their battle fleet. The advantage in 
force was with tlie Britisli ; but, in the half hour which 
ensued before they reached the main fleet, the Germans suc- 
ceeded in inflicting upon their pursuers a heavy loss in the 
sinking of the Queen Mary and Indefatigable, thus wiping 
out of existence sixteen of the eighty heavy guns opposed to 
their forty and in half an hour obliterating two ships aggre- 
gating a tonnage of 45,750 tons with their complement of 
1,790 seamen. As the German squadron had the speed and 
could have escaped this was a daring and splendid achieve- 
ment and, as long as the valiant esteem skill and valor, will 
redound to the honor of von Hipper and his men. 

In their authorized account, the English highly extoll 
Sir David Beatty for his decision, subsequent to such a loss, 
when von Hipper had succeeded in leading him into contact 
with the main German battle fleet, to attempt, with regard 
to the entire German fleet, what von Hipper had done to 
his squadron, that is, by battling with it on the way, to 
lead it to the main British fleet. 



72 THE GREAT WAR 

It might have been taken for granted, that the daring 
British admiral never for one instant contemplated any 
other course; for hesitation with regard to such would not 
only have marked him as far below his gallant adversary, 
but, also, as hardly fit to hold the high and important com- 
mand entrusted to him. In spite of his loss, like a veritable 
British bulldog, Beatty hung upon the German fleet, much 
stronger in proportion to his powerful squadron than even 
that had been with regard to von Hipper's, and, for an 
additional hour and a half, the battle proceeded, the two 
fleets having come about and now bearing northeast instead 
of southeast, in which period of time, without experiencing 
any further very heavy loss, the British succeeded in 
destroying one of the finest German battle cruisers, prob- 
ably the Lutzow, later admitted to have been lost in the 
encounter; but in about two hours from the opening of the 
battle, the German admiral von Scheer realized that he was 
doing but little additional injury to his enemy, while being 
drawn into contact with the main British fleet, and, coming 
about, steered south again. Even if Beatty had not handled 
his squadron any better than von Hipper had manoeuvred 
his, yet he had handled it extremely well; for, if he had 
sustained a loss of two great ships and possibly 2,000 men, 
yet he had destroyed an enemy cruiser greater than any in 
his squadron and led the entire German fleet up to the 
British main fleet, whose part it was now to destroy it. 
But Jellico and the admirals under him did not display 
ability in proportion to the power they wielded. 

The third battle cruiser squadron under Admiral Hood 
was leading the main battle fleet and, while it is reported 
that he observed flashes of gunfire to the southwest at 5 :30 
p. m., and sent a swift light cruiser to investigate, which in 
fifteen minutes became engaged, yet he apparently held still 
so far east, that upon her return and report, he was obliged 
to put his helm northwest to reach Beatty, in compliance 
with whose order, to take position at the head of the British 
line, he at once did so, and, with his fine vessel carrying six 
12-inch gims and 780 men, was promptly sunk. The explan- 
ation of this immediate loss being that, as he attempted to 
engage at 8,000 yards, while at no time did Beatty ever get 



THE GREAT ^Y AE 73 

nearer than 1-2,000, and, for the most part, fought at from 
14,000 to 18,000 yards. Hood, in coming about, probably did 
that which Schley at Santiago had had the military intelli- 
gence to avoid. Hood sank his vessel and lost his entire 
crew "in a most inspiring manner, worthy of his great naval 
ancestors;'' Schley lost one man, inflicted great damage on 
his adversary, and went to his grave the recipient of carping 
criticism. The one looped in, the other looped out, a pure 
question of naval tactics. 

But Admiral Arbuthnot displayed even less tactical abil- 
ity than Hood, for he succeeded in getting his, the first 
cruiser scjuadron. between the German and the British battle 
fleets, which cost the British the Defence and Black Prince 
sunk, and the Warrior disabled. 

The German fleet had l)een led to the British main battle 
fleet, but the latter had apparently come into action in 
rather a confused way. 

From about 7 o'clock, followed by the four squadrons of 
British battleships. Sir David Beatty, with the three battle 
cruiser s(]uadrons headed southeast, having the German fleet 
at the same disadvantage as von Spec had had Craddock off" 
the coast of Chili, and for another hour the battle proceeded, 
when about 8 o'clock the German fleet, being outfooted and 
pressed to sea, seemed lost. Outnumbered and outclassed, it 
was suffering heavily, but it was handled with rare skill. 
With smoke palls and torpedo attacks, and aided by the 
mist, von Scheer worked hard to save the beaten fleet, which 
now for six hours had engaged the gi-eatest navy in the 
world. The heavy fog at last shut out of view the fleets and 
the British admiral. Sir John Jellico, confined his search 
for his adversaries to torpedo attacks, which was perhaps a 
wise course, but, by the morning, no German ships were to 
be seen, and the battle was definitely ended. 

As the result of this great battle, the British promptly 
admitted the loss of six ships, aggregating a tonnage of 
104,700 tons, and mounting eight 13.5-inch, sixteen 12-inch 
and sixteen 9.2-inch gims. Their loss in personnel was two 
rear admirals, three or more captains and nearly six thous- 
and seamen. They also acknowledged that eight destroyers 
had been lost. The Germans at first onlv admitted the loss 



74 THE GREAT WAR 

of one battleship and four light cruisers, but subsequently- 
declared that they had also lost a battle cruiser, the Lutzow, 
of 28,000 tons, previously denied for military reasons. All 
told, they put their loss at six ships and five destroyers, of 
an aggregate tonnage of 60,000 tons. 

According to the British admiral, the German loss 
amounted to two battleships of the first class, two of the 
Deutschland class, one battle cruiser, five light cruisers, six 
destroyers and a submarine, in addition to many others dam- 
aged so seriously as to be useless for some time. 

Until the actual loss of the German fleet is known, no ac- 
curate estimate of the result of the great battle can be 
arrived at. Yet, from what has been admitted, some deduc- 
tions can be drawn. First, as the loss of the British in ton- 
nage, guns and men was not, by any statement, twice as 
great as the German ; while their strength as a navy, nearly 
three times as great, the Genmans unavoidably suffered 
greater loss from the battle than the British. 

Second, as the Germans did not hesitate to give an incor- 
rect report, for military reasons, it is most reasonable to 
presume that their corrected report is still unreliable, espe- 
cially when contrasted with losses, testified to as seen by the 
British. 

Yet it is difficult to dispel the impression that the tAvo 
German admirals handled their inferior fleet with greater 
ability than the British, and, if it is true, it is senseless to 
refuse to admit the fact. Arbuthnot and Hood may have 
shown great courage, but certainly not much ability. The 
British admiral in supreme command may have acted with 
the greatest discretion and exhibited wise caution, but one 
thing is apparent, when brought to him by his subordinate, 
he did not destroy the German fleet with the mighty flotilla 
under his command. 

In conclusion, one odd fact stands out in the account of 
this "The Battle of Jutland, published by authority," and 
that is that the name of every admiral in high command 
appears save one, who, mentioned by Admiral Jellico in his 
official report, in the above escapes notice, and that, the 
admiral who, next to Beatty, had achieved the greatest dis- 
tinction in the war. The name of Admiral Sir Frederick 



TBE GREAT ^y AR 75 

Doveton Stiirdee, leader of the Main Battle Squadron, vic- 
tor of the smashinfr firrht off the Falkland Islands, from 
which not a single German vessel engao:ed remained afloat, 
does not appear in this account "published by authority." 

Greatly as Engrhind and all the world was stirred by this, 
the greatest naval battle of all time, yet it was not as impres- 
sive an event as the passing of that great soul, who, up to 
that time, had been Britain's greatest inspiration. 

Von Moltke. the chief of the German staff, had been 
retired. Churchill and Tirpitz, heads of the respective 
navies of Great Britain and Germany, forced out of com- 
mand, and others, like the Grand Duke Nicholas, com- 
mander-in-chief of all the armies of Russia, were, too, to 
relin(iuish their high control of the mighty agencies they 
had wielded. But Kitchener peri.shed at sea, in the full 
blaze of completed work, just before the mighty instrument 
he had fashioned for Britain was al)out to uiake its immense 
influence felt upon the field of battle, in the tremendous 
struggle, he, alone, of all the great spirits of his day, had 
grasped the full significance of. Perhaps he was fortunate 
in his death, for the war which Lord Northcliffe w\is wag- 
ing against him might have finally brought him down, as it 
did bring down the great Prime ^linister who had appointed 
him and who would never have parted with him. So, dying 
as he did, with his great work complete, he passed away 
with more honor than any British soldier since the days of 
Wellington, and, in the estimation of the world, stands still 
as the most imposing figure of his period. 

Meantime. Verdun, in its fourth month, had taken the 
heaviest toll of all from the Germans, as their casualty lists 
for May indicated 102,507 in all. Prisoners, as usual, below 
2,000. but "missing," 6,771. Relief, however, was about to 
come to both French and Italians, for in the first days of 
June, with a rush. General Brusilloff struck the long line in 
the East, to which he was opposed. 

From the city of Pinsk in the Pripet marshes, down to the 
Roumanian frontier, in five armies, under the supreme com- 
mand of the Austrian Archduke Frederick, some six hun- 
dred thousand foemen were arrayed along the line they had 
held during the winter. These armies were commanded, 



76 THE GREAT ^Y AR 

from north to south, by Puhallo, whose line reached from 
the Pripet marshes to Kolki, by the Archduke Joseph Fer- 
dinand from Kolki to Dubno; from Dubno to Zalotste by 
Boehm-Ermolli ; from the edge of the Galician border to the 
city of Buczacs, by Bothner, with a mixed German- Austrian 
force; while from there to the Roumanian border, General 
Pflanzer was in command. 

General Brusillojff who, with Russky, had shared the dis- 
tinction of smashing the first Austrian offensive in Septem- 
ber, 1914, had succeeded General IvanofI in command of 
one-half of the Russian line. Under him were four armies, 
the first of which, the anny he had led in those former vic- 
tories, now under General Kaledin. Below him came Gen- 
eral Sakharov. Below him General Scherbachev. The low- 
est part of the line was under General Letchitski. 

In eight days General Kaledin stormed his way forward 
fifty miles, capturing Lutsk and, with the assistance of Gen- 
eral Sakharov, Dubno, and, in so doing, between them 
securing 70,000 prisoners and 53 guns, a rout sufficient to 
deprive the Archduke Frederick of his command, which 
was entrusted to a German general, von Linsingen, rein- 
forced from the northern Russian line and from France, five 
army corps from the latter field being dispatched to stem the 
tide. South of where General Kaledin and Sakharov were 
operating. General Scherbachev was opposed to General 
Bothner, whose left wing he could not press back, although 
against the German general's right wing he was more suc- 
cessful. It was the hapless General Pflanzer who suffered 
most. Utterly routed he was chased out of Bukowina, the 
capital, and all the towns of which were occupied by Gen- 
eral Letchitski; and with 198,000 prisoners, captured, also 
219 guns and 644 machine guns, on the 1st of July General 
Brusilloff rearranged his lines just as the French and British 
offensive began on the Western front. 

There General Foch commanded the French, General 
Haig the British, north and south of the River Somme and, 
after an extremely heavy bombardment of the German 
trenches, the two armies advanced. Steadily and pertina- 
ciously they pounded the German trenches, moved up, drove 
back counter-attacks and methodically, step by step, advanced 



THE GREAT ^y AR 77 

with considerable losses, but an ever-increasing list of pris- 
oners captured. It was not a battle in any respect like the 
gre^it Russian offensive. It could not be. for Haig and Foch 
did not have Austrian commanders and polyglot armies to 
contend with, but were opposed to the very best that Ger- 
many could i)ring into the field in military force. It was 
the supreme test as to whether any troops could break the 
German line. 

With its continuous hammer of heavy artillery, and its 
slow but continuous advance, at the end of the first month 
not as much teiTitory had been recovered as had been seized 
by the Germans around Verdun; but that battle had been 
altered to a German defensive action. C^^mtinually described 
as a failure, yet steadily proceeding, the battle of the Somme 
required eveiy effort of the (Jermans to hold the small por- 
tion of territory which jutted into France the farthest, and 
still, piece by piece, it left their control. On other fields the 
tide was turning also. 

In German East Africa General Smuts was making steady 
pi-ogress. Sei)arating the (lermans near the ocean from the 
force wliich had been operating on Lake Victoria. and Tan- 
ganykii. and j)ushing them down, he gradually surrounded 
them, and although the British force below Kut, on the 
Tigris, could not surmount that obstacle to an advance on 
Bagdad, yet in Armenia, above, the Grand Duke Nicholas 
was still advancing, something of a threat to the Turkish 
forces, between the two armies, which had pushed into Per- 
sia. 

The failure of the Germans was marked by the removal 
of the talented Falkenhayne from supreme command and 
the elevation of General Hindenberg, the last hope of Ger- 
many. 

The great war had cei-tainly been the grave of reputa- 
ti(ms, military and political, and more yet were to be 
brought low. but the remark of the German politician, Zim- 
mermann, that it was a day of small men, was but another 
indication of the inability of the clever German to see 
clearly. 

That Asquith and Bethman Hollweg still rode such a 
storm was evidence of pre-eminent political ability, while 



78 THE GREAT WAR 

the fall of Sanzonoff and the elevation of Sturmer in Rus- 
sia, a foreshadowing of the flexibility of the great German 
Chancellor, to whom it was apparent that there were more 
ways of winning a war than through the use solely of troops 
in the field, and, from him, now there began to issue intima- 
tions of what was designated "an honorable peace." 

But to this suggestion Great Britain did not incline a 
gracious ear. In the first place, it was most indefinite and 
had only come when it was fully realized that the British 
Empire was gathering for an immense effort its full 
strength, now well in hand and capably led. 

If she had as yet produced no soldier, who in the field 
could have been called a military genius; nor any compara- 
ble with Joffre or Hindenberg, Falkenhayne or Foch, or 
even Brusilloff, Sarrail or Russky; yet, in General Haig, 
she had a commander capable of handling effectively the 
vast numbers she could now put into the field, and this 
alone was a great advance, for the press failed to remember 
that in the Franco-Prussian war the great von Moltke only 
admitted that there was one French general capable of 
handling 200,000 men, and Haig w^as now directing more 
than half a million. 

In the month that it had fought. Kitchener's army was a 
great surprise to the Germans, the artillery in particular 
being far beyond what the Germans had thought possibly 
could be produced in the period which had evolved it. In 
the opinion of Hindenberg, too, the infantr\7^ were "tough 
fighters," although, Avith regard to the leaders, the grim 
old German bluntly declared they "were not on the heights." 

Perhaps it was just as well that they were not. Steady, 
methodical training in the field, under fire, would get them 
up to the French and German standard and possibly beyond. 
Just as the Federal armies rose to the highest efficiency 
under the stimulating influence of repeated combats with 
the Confederates under Lee and his lieutenants. 

Those who failed to trust democracy under trial were too 
precipitate, the test was still to come. In two years a wea- 
pon had been forged by democracy which it took autocracy 
forty to finish to its satisfaction ; now they were to be put in 
contest with each other. 



THE GREAT ^y AR 79 

Could autocracy or Teutonic efficiency jioint to any spec- 
tacle as impressive as that which liberal democracy revealed 
in the Boer general at the head of his British subordinates — 
IToskins and Xortiiey — and assisted by his South African 
lieutenant. Van de Venter, with half of German East Africa 
in his control, the railroad cut, Dar Es Salaam taken and 
the German force rin<red around with British, South Afri- 
cans, Rhodesians and Belgians I 

To get the nearast parallel one had to hark back to Amer- 
ican history and note the old Confederate \Alieeler advising 
Shafter at Santiago. 

No, after all, there was something in democracy and home 
rule that tiie Gernums. with all their efficiency, could not 
understand, and the nearest that the brainiest of them could 
get to the realization was the mournful statement of the 
Prussian-American journalist, "Alsace has been nothing but 
a thorn in Gernumy's side." 

Even the Italians, too, after a year of struggling in the 
ten-ific terrain, where the combat had been pitched for 
them, and in which they had been unable to do much more 
than hold ui)(»ii the defensive, some 360,000 Austrians, for 
the last month or more had given occupation to double that 
number, to the great assistance of the Russians under Brusil- 
loff, and now that to stop his forward movement, some of 
these were hurrying back to the Eastern front, the Italians 
])ut forth their greatest efforts along the line of the Isonzo 
River, and, carrying Gorizia by assault, drove the Austrian 
defenders out with a loss of 18.758 prisoners, 30 heavy guns, 
62 pieces of trench artillery and 92 machine guns. 

In the young GeiTnan general, Gressman, the successor of 
Von der Golst. in Turkey, the Germans had a very capable 
soldier. He could not be everywhere, and the Turkish divi- 
sion, which again advanced against the Suez Canal, was 
repulsed with heavy loss, while what began to look very 
serious for Germany and Turkey in that direction, the revolt 
of the Arabs of Mecca and the driving of the Turks out of 
that city and Medina by the Grand Sheriffe of Mecca, aided" 
and munitioned by the British, gave promise of big results, 
but still Gressman had stopped the advance of the British 
up the Tigris. He had driven the Russian general, Baratoff, 



80 THE GREAT WAR 

back as far as Hamadan, in Persia, which was again aflame, 
and he had captured Mush and Bitlis, in Armenia. The 
latter city, however, he was unable to hold very long, for the 
Russian general, Yudenitch, again occupied it, and the 
Turkish advance into Armenia was checked. 

Again, whatever might be General Hindenberg's ojDinion 
of the British leaders, one thing was evident, through their 
own published lists, and that was a grapple with the British 
was always accompanied with a rise in the German casual- 
ties. In the month of July these had risen to 122,540, and, 
while the prisoners were, as usual, almost negligible the 
"missing" had gone up with a bound to 15,334. Impressed 
by the facts of the stoppage of the Verdun attack, the suc- 
cessful Italian advance, the steady beat of the Somme offen- 
sive, now continuing to the end of the second month with its 
steadily mounting list of prisoners and gims, but, above all, 
by Brusilloff's tremendous prisoner list, now announced as 
300,000, together with 405 cannon and 1336 machine guns 
and a third of Galicia reoccupied, and with two passes in 
the Carpathians in his hands, the Roumanians now deemed 
Austria hopelessly broken, and hurriedly decided to inter- 
vene upon the side of the Entente and seize Transylvania, 
depending upon but a small force to hold the Dobrudscha. 

It is possible that no matter how they might have planned 
their campaign, it may have resulted in failure, for they 
were neither well oificered nor efficiently munitioned; but, 
had they stood upon the defensive at the passes into Tran- 
sylvania and pushed with all their force into Bulgaria 
along the lines with which their troops had at least the 
knowledge, which had been acquired from their intervention 
in the Balkan war, they might have seized and cut the rail- 
road connecting Berlin with Constantinople and effected a 
junction with Sarrail and aroused Greece to strike for 
Kavala. Yet, if they had not succeeded in this, a failure to 
hold the passes to Transylvania w^ould have exposed them 
to great risks in recrossing the Danube, and possibly the 
course they took after all was the most prudent, and at first 
they seemed to have scored some successes and taken some 
prisoners among their kinsfolk; but, in the Dobrudscha, 
from the outset, they were most unfortunate. 



THE GREAT ^y AR 81 

Under two of their ablest generals, the Germans prepared 
to meet this new foe. 

In Transylvania the force under Falkenhayne fell back 
and drew the Roumanians on : in the Dobrudscha, under 
Mackensenn, with a succession of swift strokes, the Rou- 
mania defense crumbled. First, that last named general 
captured a whole division in garrison, and although sepa- 
rated by the Danube, yet, pushing up the Dobrudscha, got 
well behind the capital. 

In Transylvania the city of Kronstaadt was captured and 
Hemannstadt threatened by the Roumanians, but the Rus- 
sians did not seem able to break through the passes and join 
the Roumanians, and soon matters became so serious in the 
Dobrudscha that movement in Transylvania slowed down. 
There General Falkenhayne showed himself a general as 
able in the field as he had been as head of the staff. With a 
swift movement he crossed a range and, seizing a j)ass 
through which one of the Roumanian invading armies had 
come, captured its transport and forced it to the most des- 
perate fighting to get back to Roumania. The force which 
had crossed into Serbia at Orsova also was unable to ad- 
vance, and the invasion sjieedily was transformed into a 
desperate defense of Roumania itself. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE EBBING OF THE TIDE 

Despite the energy and ability with which the German 
Staff moved against the Roumanians during the month of 
September, the Somme offensive, with its steady, unending 
beat upon the German armies in the West was making itself 
felt. Kitchener's men were making good. By October 1st, 
1916, the number of German military prisoners in England 
had risen from 15,000 to 36,894 and in addition there 2,120 
German seamen. In comparison with this the Germans 
could only show 29,629 British soldiers and 408 seamen. 
The tide had turned, even if it was moving slowly and no 
two men realized it more thoroughly than the German 
Chancellor whose responsibilities were so tremendous and 
the wildly ambitious Crown Prince of Germany, who had 
not hesitated, just prior to the war, to do all he could to 
discredit the Chancellor in that official's efforts to hold the 
Civil above the Military authorities. In their two expres- 
sions of opinion, published just about this time, the temper 
of the two was manifested. To the Reichstag the Chan- 
cellor said : — 

"The French and the British, it is true, have achieved 
advantages. Our first lines have been pressed back some 
kilometers, we have also to deplore heavy losses of men and 
material. 1 hat is inevitable in an offensive on such a mighty 
scale, but what our enemies hoped and strove for — namely, 
to break through on a grand scale and roll up our position 
on the West — has not been attained. Firm and unbroken 
stands our front. Heavy and hard is the battle out there on 
the Somme, nor is the end there in sight. It will cost further 
sacrifices. Still another and another village may be lost, 
but they will not get through. That is guaranteed by our 
leadership and the incomparable braver^^ of all the German 
tribes." 

After further allusions in which he laid all the blame for 
war upon the adversaries of Germany and pictured the Ger- 
mans as fighting only to defend themselves, the Chancellor . 



THE GREAT ^\ AR 83 

declared : — '"Therefore we were able first and alone to 
declare our readiness for peace negotiations." 

The Crown Prince thus unburdened himself in an inter- 
view : 

"Have you had a chance to see enough of this terrible 
business, or does your heart already ache enough over the 
sorrows wliich have dest-ended u|)on this bad region of the 
earth? What a pity. 'What a i)ity it is.' All this terrible 
extinction of human life is belating the hope and expectancy 
of youth and mortgaging our energies and resources far into 
the future. It is not alone for German lives, for wasted Ger- 
man energies that we mourn. We are well able, at least, 
comparatively well able, to bear it. But all the world, 
including America, which has invested in the Entente's 
chances of success, will have to aid in footing the bill. That, 
of course, is one reason why the sympathies of your capital- 
ists are with our enemies. Isn't there a book which says: 
Where the treasure is. there the heart is? It is a pity your 
treasure is not invested during these hours of world agony 
in sowing the seed of preparation for the fruits of peace; 
so your prosperity would rest in the great harvest which 
would follow the return to neutral conditions, rather than 
in the unhappy and uncertain fruit of war." 

After bewailing the war and the frightful implements 
which the Germans were obliged to use in waging battle, 
this unfilial and disloyal son, who had done his utmost to 
maintain the ascendancy of the Military Party against the 
Emperor's Chancellor, especially in the matter of the 
ZaboiTi incident, by his g&stures and applause in the Legis- 
lative body of the Empire, now inquired of the Panama 
Canal, declaring: 

"I should like to know your Colonel Goethals, who has 
been fighting swamps and fever and sliding mountains. It 
is in that sort of enterprise that the world should find what 
one of your American philosopher, James, designated as the 
Moral Equivalent for War." 

But the gist of what the Crown Prince thought was 
really contained in this:— "We are all tired of bloodshed. 
We all want peace." 



84 THE GREAT WAR 

Nor was it surprising; for, while the great bulk of the 
Austro-German loss in Galicia fell on Austria, 402,471 
soldiers and 841 guns taken was an appalling enumeration 
of loss for the Russian front. In addition, Italy had cap- 
tured 33,048 men and 36 guns and if of those surrendered 
to the Russians, only one-fifth of the prisoners were Ger- 
man; yet, in the steady beat of the Somme offensive, the 
entire loss was German and that, in the four months had 
yielded in capture 72,981 men and 303 guns and still was 
proceeding with no sign of let up. Roumania, it was true, 
was being overrun; but General Sarrail from Saloniki 
had pushed up into Macedonian Serbia, with his left wing 
at Monastir, there, in touch with the Italian right, 
extended from Avlona; and, from the Aegean to the Adri- 
atic, a strong Allied force now barred the way of the Cen- 
tral Powers to Greece. 

In the Turkish Asian fields, an English strategist of high 
rank now had the Mesopotamian Campaign well in hand; 
for in General Maude, w^ho succeeded Sir Percy Lake, the 
British had at last a general who could turn to account the 
opportunities which, might present themselves and sur- 
mount the difficulties of an advance up the Tigris. 

In November, 1916, also occurred an event of great 
importance in the Western Hemisphere, the re-election of 
the great Peace President of the United States, whose elec- 
tion could not be considered a partisan triumph for the 
Democratic Party, as he had shown himself much stronger 
than his party. 

Again and again had the leaders of his party united 
against his policies, but only to have them pushed to enact- 
ment, in spite of every efi^ort which they could bring to 
bear against him. The combination of Mr. Roosevelt and 
Mr. Hughes against him at the polls had been as fruitless; 
and, as a gi-eat world figure the firm, quiet, but persistent 
leader of the American people had become a mighty factor 
in the great world struggle. That he was going to inter- 
vene in some fashion, no one who had studied the man for 
one instant doubted; but, what the nature of intervention 
would be, was the great question. 



TEE GREAT WAR 85 

Fully realizing the strength of the individual who had 
forced Germany to abandon her submarine policy or at least 
to conform its exercise to his ideas of how it should be con- 
ducted, the German ruler realized that the President of the 
Ignited States could not be ignored, and, almost as if 
addressing him, the German Chancellor at once attempted 
the justification of Germany in the war. 

The Somme offensive was still under way and still reap- 
ing its captures and, despite the fact that one-half of Rou- 
mania was now in the clutch of Falkenhayne and Macken- 
senn, the blockade was pressing Germany sorely. 

Worn witii labor, age and sorrow, the Austrian Emperor 
passed away, leaving his Empire, racked and torn with war, 
a mere appanage to the mighty Ally, which had urged him 
to refuse the European conference, and backed his frantic 
invasion of Serbia, thereby inaugurating the world war, 
which was still raging after two years and four months of 
slaughter and devastation. 

With allusions to "Peace Mongers" in the United States, 
the London Times now girded itself for a last eifort to 
nniiorse the Prime Minister of (Jreat Britain and supplant 
him with that Liberal, upon whom the bulk of the Con- 
servative leaders had centered, the energetic, resourceful, 
fearless Radical. Lloyd (ieorge, who had publicly declared 
England would regard any attempt at mediation as an 
unfi'iendly act. 

Mr. Asquith went down and, after a brief and fruitless 
effort, upon the part of Mr. Bonar Law, the leader of the 
Conservative Party. Lloyd George was sent for and pro- 
ceeded to shape a cabinet. 

It seemed a time to take hold. Britain was at her 
strongest. Despite all the glamour which surrounded the 
triumphant march through two-thirds of Roumania, down 
to the Black Sea from Bukowina, the remaining third held 
back the invaders, and while the German Staff could still 
supply 4,400,000 men for their armies, the Austrians could 
no longer muster more than 2,180,000 men all told. 

Against the French and English, whom they esteemed 
their most dangerous enemies, the Central Powers therefore 
opposed a force of 2,560,000 Germans, their best and bravest 



86 THE GREAT WAR 

troops. Against the Russians were lined up 1,300,000 Ger- 
mans, 780,000 Austro-Hungarians and 40,000 Turks. 
Against the Roumanians 240,000 Germans, 220,000 Aus- 
trians, 80,000 Bulgarians and 40,000 Turks. Against the 
composite force of General Sarrail in Macedonia 60,000 
Germans, 180,000 Bulgarians and 20,000 Turks. But this 
was not all ; for there were probably at least as many Turks 
about and around Constantinople and some 300,000 or pos- 
sibly 400,000 disposed against the Russians and British in 
their respective spheres in Asia. 

As opposed to these. Great Britain and France, in all 
probability, arrayed 3,500,000 men on the Western front 
and Russia nearly as many on the East. General Sarrail 
had under his command possibly 360,000 men; but, in his 
rear, a disaflFected government, Greece, which could put into 
line about as many. To the Italians, with a total near a 
million, pressing forward for Trieste, the Austrians barred 
the way with 660,000 men. In Egypt the British had a 
force of 180,000 men and up the Tigris General Maude was 
moving with 120,000 men to force Kut El Amara, defended 
by 80,000 Turks ; while probably two other Turkish columns 
well into Persia opposing Russian armies, mustered between 
them 120,000 men. 

Great changes in the high command had taken place. 
General Nivelle had succeeded the great Joffre and signal- 
ized his appointment with a blow, delivered at Verdun, 
resulting in the recovery of the most important part of the 
terrain in that neighborhood, won by the Germans in months 
of toil and bloodshed, now abandoned with 11,387 prisoners, 
captured by the French. Sir John Jellico had been relieved 
of the command of the Grand Fleet and, succeeded by Sir 
David Beatty; but that had not sufficed, Mr. Balfour, the 
First Lord of the Admiralty, had also given way to Sir 
Edward Carson, and had been assigned to the office of Lord 
Grey. 

In Russia the changes were harder to understand, for 
while the German suspect, Sturmer, had given way to Tre- 
poff, the latter had very shortly after resigned on account 
of a worse appointment even than Sturmer, Protopoff, and 
Trepoff had been replaced by Prince Golitzin, a reactionary. 



THE GREAT WAR 87 

about whom nothing else was known but that rather 
unfortunate characterization. 

Before the new Prime Minister of Great Britain could 
well settle himself in place, the German Government, 
through its Chancellor, made direct overtures for peace, 
presented through the United States. The German Chan- 
cellor claimed : — 

"The four Allied ix)wers were obliged to take up arms in 
order to defend justice and the liberty of national evolution. 
The glorious deeds of our armies have in no wav altered 
their purpose. . . . Our aims are not to shatter or 
annihilate our adversaries. In spite of our consciousness of 
our militaiT and economic strength and our readiness to 
continue the war which has been forced upon us until the 
bitter end, if such be necessary, at the same time prompted 
by the desire to avoid further bloodshed and to make an end 
of the atrocities of war, the four Allied powers have pro- 
posed to enter forthwitii into peace negotiations. The pro- 
positions which they bring f(n*ward for such negotiations, 
and which have for their object a guarantee of the existence, 
honor and lii)erty of evolution for their nations, are, accord- 
ing to tlioir firm Itclief, an appropriate basis for the estab- 
lishment of a lasting peace, etc."' 

This declaration was a supreme test to those to whom it 
was addressed. What would be the reply of that Minister 
who was nearest to the position of head of the Entente? 

Mr. Lloyd George had been raised to the exalted position 
in which he was on account of the possession of many ster- 
ling qualities of greatness; but if a position could have been 
conceived of peculiarly fitted for his great predecessor to 
fill, it was the one in which Mr. Lloyd George was placed. 
No man could have replied to the German Chancellor as 
effectively as the great Parliamentary leader, Mr. Asquith, 
unless possibly it was the President of the United States. 
There should have been absolutely no temper in the reply 
and from neither of these two would there have been such. 
The reply of either would have accentuated the fact that 
Germany was now asking for just what she had refused on 
England's request before the war and she would have been 
informed, that if she sincerely desired peace she should sub- 
mit the terms which she desired considered. There should 



88 THE GREAT WAR 

have been nothing added to distract attention from the fact 
that the Entente would consider the proposals of peace 
when they were so formulated as to permit of intelligent 
consideration. It was the occasion for a cool and wary 
swordsman. It was not the time for an aggressive speech. 
There was no occasion to recite what Germany had done, 
the effort should have been made to force her to say what 
she wished to do. Unquestionably the speech of the Prime 
Minister was an able one; for he was an extremely able 
man ; but while he declared : — 

"We will, therefore, wait until we hear what terms and 
guarantees the German government offers other than those, 
surer than those which she so lightly broke" — 

he prefaced it with what must have been meant for an 
insult even if the truth : "Meanwhile we shall put our trust 
in an unbroken army rather than in a broken faith," 

It was a brilliant speech and quite up to the best efforts of 
the speaker in a brilliant past ; but, whether it Avas the best 
speech that could have been made upon the supreme occasion 
that called it forth was a question. In the minds of some, it 
suffered a little in contrast with the shorter and calmer 
speech of the Leader of the House, Mr. Bonar Law. 

On December 20, 1916, President Wilson gave the world 
another surprise and some great men something of a shock, 
by calling upon both sides in the titanic struggle to state 
upon what terms peace could be arrived at. 

To the forceful Lord Northcliffe, the uncrowned king of 
England, the inquiry was distinctly distasteful, and, in the 
press controlled by him, the charge was made that the 
speech played the German game. There were also hints 
that it would not be unnatural, remembering the attitude of 
America in 1863, to consider such suggestions unfriendly, 
and, as previous to this, The London Times had alluded, 
with some scorn, to what it designated as the efforts of 
"Peace Mongers in America," some friends of the Allies 
were fearful that the strong man of Great Britain might 
force a rebuff to the President's wise move. But the Prime 
Minister and the government were strong enough in this 



THE GREAT ^V AR 89 

instance to show that Lord Northcliffe's paper did not speak 
for the government, and replied in a document of great 
length, about which, whatever else might be the opinion, it 
could not be denied, it stated terms, and, as the German 
government could not bring itself to do this, the result was 
a distinct advantage to the Allies. 

As the year 1916 closed, therefore, on the whole, the Allies 
appeared stronger than the Central powers. 

If the entrance of Koumania was a blunder, as the new 
Prime Minister of Great Britain had declared, it was never- 
theless a blunder which kept occupied 580,000 troops of the 
Central powers, which, if not so engaged, might have been 
most effectively used elsewhere. 

If the Somme offensive had as yet yielded to the Allies not 
much more ground than the (lennan offensive at Verdun, 
yet the loss by the Germans of 108,000 prisoners, 149 heavy 
guns. 200 field guns and 1,432 nuichine guns, was a loss not 
to be blown away in talk, and one which, coupled with the 
unascertained dead and wounded, was to compel the retreat 
which General Ilindciibcrg later made, and which was to 
indicate that the Souiuic offensive meant a restoration of 
most valuable French territory and French people to France, 
nearly 1.000 stpiare miles, which, up to that time, had been 
firmly held by the invader. 

There were evidences also that a well thought out series 
of movements were under way to disi)ose of Turkey, which, 
under German guidance and organization, had proved a 
great asset to the Central powers. 

Out of Egypt an expedition had moved and, on the east- 
ern confines of the Sinai Peninsidar, a Turkish force had 
been driven back with loss, while contemporaneously General 
Maude moved up against Kut El Amara and General Bara- 
toff pushed west from Ilamadan in Persia. 

In Macedonia General Sarrail had occupied some hundred 
or more square miles of Serbia, including the City of Mon- 
astir, and the Italians had made farther progi'e&s in Albania 
and on the Corso plateau and in the Trentino. 

All told, in the year 1916, the Central powers had lost 
582,423 prisoners, and, although the bulk of this loss was 



90 THE GREAT WAR 

undoubtedly suffered by Austria, yet, of her great armies 
Germany must have yielded up in the year over 200,000 in 
prisoners of war alone. As against these losses, the Ger- 
mans had the splendid territory they had won in Roumania 
and the valuable booty and provisions there seized, the 
heartening of their allies by their splendid triumphs, the 
reassuring of Austria by the removal of the Roumanian 
menace and the establishment of a broader way to Constan- 
tinople and the great domain of the Turks. 

Undoubtedly the prestige of Germany still stood high and 
again an opportunity had been extended to her for the state- 
ment of such terms as would have satisfied the great peace- 
loving republic of the West. 

But Germany's triumphs had turned her head, and, in 
place of stating terms, she pinned her faith to the reaction- 
ary forces of Russia and the ravages of the submarine. 
These were undoubtedly strong cards, but if they failed to 
win and the use of them brought in the United States upon 
the side of the Allies, they would prove destructive. 

If any one had failed to understand w^hat the war had 
disclosed to careful students by this time, an authority now 
came forward to state the result. 

Professor Friederich Meinecke, of Freiburg University, 
on the eve of 1917, published a resume and critique of the 
war. Extracts from the German professor's article, which 
appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung, sketched out the war 
as follows: 

"Our first object was to overthrow France rapidly and to 
compel her to make peace. As it was our interest rapidly 
to reduce the number of our enemies this peace would prob- 
ably have been very lenient for France. If we succeeded, 
we could then turn quickly, carry out the same military idea 
against Russia also, with the best prospect of success, and 
then, under favorable conditions, conclude the final peace 
with England, who would have been disarmed on the Con- 
tinent. This peace also, like the first peace concluded with 
France, would have had to assume, in high degree, the char- 
acter of a compromise, since we could not hope to overthrow 
England's naval supremacy. This whole programme, bril- 
liantly begim, collapsed at the gates of Paris, in the Battle 
of the Marne. This battle was not a tactical victory, but it 



TEE GREAT ^Y AR 91 

was a (Treat strategfical success for the French. Perhaps our 
programme would not have collapsed if we had carried 
throuofh our original strategical idea with perfect strictness, 
kcepinof our main forces firmly together and for the time 
abandoning East Prussia." 

Professor Meinecke admitted, however, the failure of the 
German armies in the fall of 1914 and winter of 191.5 to 
break through West and East in the bloody assaults at 
Ypres. and before Warsjiw. but claimed that the French also 
failed about the same time in the Champagne, and certain 
it is that the great Joffre spoke of driving the enemy out 
by the end of 1914. Then came the (ierman smashing of the 
Ru.ssian lines on the Danujec in May, which, despite all that 
they accomplished, ended again ujjon throwing them on the 
defensive as far flung as was their battle line, and this was 
followed by the' failure of the French and British to break 
through at Loos and in the Chamjiagne in the fall of 1915. 
Finally he revealed the secret of the attack upon Verdun, 
about which so many theories have been advanced. He said: 

'•The argimient among us a year ago was that the decision 
must be sought not in the intangible distant East, but in 
the concentrated West, the nerve centre of the enemy's 
forces. The decision must not, however, be a decision in the 
old sense aiming at a break through and a rolling up of the 
enemy's resistance — for such a decision was regarded as no 
longer possible here in the West — but a decision better 
adapted to the experiences of the war of position and to 
psychological calculations. We should in fact break in at 
a partictdai-ly critical position, destroy one of the most 
inii)oi'tant French fortresses, and so prove to the French 
that they could no longer win and they would do better to 
end a war which had lost all prospects for them. That 
was the origin of our undertakino^ against Verdun. But this 
time the new politico-military idea led only to an heroic 
episode. If our original successes could have been pursued 
at the same pace to their goal, our political purpose would 
perhajis have been attained. But meanwhile our enemies 
pulled themselves together for still more gigantic achieve- 
ments. England learned from us universal militar}^ service 
and the conversion of industry for the production of a 
mighty supply of arms and ammunition. At the same time 
she leaned upon the industrial strength of America, and so, 
while Japan helped also, she was able to equip the new Rus- 



92 THE GREAT ^Y AR 

sian formation with the apparatus which we had smashed 
the year before. Thus, in June and Jiily, 1916, it came to 
the great double offensive of our enemies in East and West. 
The result was that we had to interrupt our operations 
against Verdun and the enemy offensive also achieved par- 
tial successes, especially in the East, although the real object 
— to break through and roll up our lines — could not be 
achieved, in spite of an intensity of attack and superiority 
in technical resources far greater than in our break through 
in Galicia. This was due to the fact that we, in the interval, 
had still further developed the possibilities of trench war- 
fare." 

To the professor, the battle of the Somme had indicated 
that it was no longer possible to arrive at military decisions 
"in the full peace-compelling sense," and that the sacrifices 
demanded by the war bore no relation to the military results 
which could at this last stage be achieved, and as a compro- 
mise, was all that could be attained, it was the part of states- 
manship to seek it. In conclusion, he thought the "knock- 
out" policy did not pay, but that the smaller powers would 
learn from the war that they risked their lives when they 
touched the live wire which protected Central Europe. 

In this extremely candid review there was a world of 
information, and it was indicative of Britain's true great- 
ness in the struggle. In two years, despite all manner of 
blunders, she had accomplished what Gennany had prepared 
for in forty. 

To Brusilloff and Joffre, and possibly to the forgotten Von 
Moltke, were, without name, assigned the honors of great 
military ability, although to whoever was responsible for 
the plan of the Danujec smash, great credit was also due. 
Professor Meinecke's paper indicated a very thorough 
understanding of the Germans, their aims and their work, 
but, despite its admirable clearness and freedom from bun- 
combe, it also indicated the utter inability of the Germans to 
understand other peoples, a condition of mind which all 
through the unhappy business was the real stumbling-block 
of the Germans. And, so, with a casualty list now mounting 
up to more than 4,000,000, the Germans entered upon the 
third vear of the Great War. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SUBMARINE CHALLENGE 

Tlie slauorhter caused by the Great War had now become 
so appalling, the misery and desohition so wide-spread and 
hideous, that, in sj)ite of the fact that he had been warned 
that intervention mi^ht be considered unfriendly, in Janu- 
ary, 1917, President Wilson felt impelled to intervene, and, 
in a speech to Confrress. which seized and held the attention 
of the world, he stated that he had addressed an identical 
note to the governments of the nations at war, requesting 
them to state more definitely than they had done the terms 
upon which they would deem it possible to make peace. As 
he reported their answei's: 

"'The Central powers united in a reply, which stated 
merely that they were ready to meet their antagonists in 
conference to discuss terms of peace. The Entente powers 
have replied much more definitely and have stated in general 
terms indeed, i)ut with sufficient definiteness to imply details, 
the arrangements, guarantees and acts of rei)aration which 
they doeui to be indispensable conditions of a satisfactory 
settlement." 

The theme of the sjieaker was a lasting peace among the 
nati(ms of the earth, the foundaticms of which should be laid 
upon a new plan. He thought it inconceivable that the 
United States should take no part in such a great enterprise. 
While he stated that the (ireat AVar must fii-st be ended 
before the plan of universal peace could be arranged, yet, he 
declared, that how the war should be ended would have much 
to do with the participation of the United States in the plan 
of establishing peace. Then he intimated that without Amer- 
ica in, the plan could not hope for success. He was against 
a balance of power, but for a community of power. He 
derived great pleasure from the fact that the statesmen of 
both of the groups of nations arrayed against one another 
had declared it was not their purpose to crush their antag- 
onists. As, in spite of their assurances, the implications 



94 TEE GREAT WAR 

were not equally clear, he thought he would state what he 
interpreted them to be: "Peace without Victory." 

With a most disquieting logic he indicated just what a 
peace with victory would mean. Something accepted under 
duress. He contended that only a peace between equals 
could last, and that there should be no difference between 
large and small nations. He held that mankind was looking 
for freedom of life, not equipoise of power. Lastly, he intro- 
duced the trenchant doctrine, that no peace could or ought 
to last which did not recognize and accept the principle that 
governments derived all their just powers from the consent 
of the governed, and, passing swiftly to a concrete case, he 
blandly assumed that everybody was committed to the view 
of an independent, united autonomous Poland. From this 
he passed on to the suggestion that every great people, strug- 
gling to a full development of its resources and its powers, 
should be assured a direct outlet to the great highwa5'^s of 
the sea, and how this could be done was also suggested. 
From this to the limitation of armaments, the address pro- 
ceeded, and in a half hour's speech, without a single extrava- 
gant word, in the midst of the greatest war of all time, with 
his peace ideals, he excited throughout the world a profound 
sensation. 

Doubts and criticisms, of course, were expressed, but the 
great voices of the civilized world proclaimed that the 
speech must receive careful consideration. 

Dropping any further reference to "Peace Mongers," The 
London Times of January 26, 1917, editorialized on "Presi- 
dent Wilson on Universal Peace," and, while it did not 
accept his "Peace Without Victory" as the great desidera- 
tum and sought to entrench itself against such, behind the 
magic of Lincoln's name and the declaration that a peace 
with victory was as essential to the Allies as it had been to 
the United States in the sixties, yet it paid a great tribute 
to "the high and daring character of his pacifist ideals, 
together with the prudence and caution of his policy." 

But the declaration was too dangerous for Germany to 
allow it to permeate her people. It was necessary to stop 
it at once, and within nine days from its promulgation, she 
answered it with the defiant declaration that she would 



THE GREAT WAR 95 

resume unrestricted submarine warfare. What Germany 
must have expected followed. 

The President at once severed diplomatic relations with 
Germany and, in a most dignified and positive utterance to 
Congress, asserted his determination to call upon that body 
for power to protect the lives of all citizens of the United 
States which should be threatened in their "right to liberty, 
justice and unmolested life.'' His conclusion was most 
impressive : 

"These are the bases of peace not war. God grant that we 
may not be challenged to defend them by acts of wilful 
injustice on the part of the Government of Germany." 

Obscured for a moment by these great events in the cen- 
tres of the world of thought, an important move in the Far 
East was brought to light, for in a sharp action, in which he 
succeeded in getting to the rear of the Turkish army in 
Mesopotamia and capturing some 1,005 prisoners. General 
Maude made the strong defensive position, Kut YA Amara 
untenable, thereby forcing the Turks to hastily abandon it 
and retreat precipitately toward Bagdad, with the British 
in j)ursuit. While the number of prisoners taken in the 
assault and pursuit, 4,300, together with those captured in 
the earlier days of the seige of the winter, a total of 7.000, 
with the natural proportion of killed and wounded and gims 
and munitions captured or destroyed, did not indicate the 
rout claimed by the press; yet it was a pretty clear demon- 
stration that tile army of 80,000 which had so long barred 
the way to Bagdad could no longer do so and, also, if the 
Turkish columns which in the previous spring had pushed 
the Russians far back into Persia, did not immediately fall 
back, they were apt to be overwhelmed. This they at once 
proceeded to do before the advancing Russian detachments, 
and fast upon the heels of the flying Turks, General Maude's 
army of 120.000 men entered the great Eastern city of the 
Caliphs. 

The capture and occupation of Bagdad by the British 
was a great gain and capable of a profound psychological 
effect upon the Eastern peoples, which the British general 



96 THE GREAT WAR 

utilized with admirable efi'ect in his proclamation upon 
entering it. It only remained to add the Syrians to tne 
Arabs and Armenians now protected against the Turks, and 
the dream of conquest from Berlin to Bagdad was broken. 
But to bring about a firm defensive against this, Russian 
action in Armenia was imperative. 

In response to the insistent demand of Eussia, the British 
admiralty had attempted to force the Dardanelles, what 
would Russia do now ? 

To discover the chance of Russian co-operation, the new 
British government had dispatched Lord Milner to Petro- 
grad, who, upon returning, seemed under the impression 
that the commission not only had accomplished a great deal, 
but that what had been accomplished was largely "owing to 
the support of the Czar." He also confided to The London 
Times that "he had found no differences of opinion as to 
the war." 

Following these rosy intimations, on the 16th of March 
appeared a rehash of the past in the report of the Darda- 
nelles Commission, which, with some recitals of fact occupied 
itself, to a far greater degree in an apportionment of blame 
for the failure of what was now admitted to have been a 
brilliant idea. While giving the originator not one word of 
praise or commendation for such, upon him. Lord Kitchener 
and others sharp criticism was laid. 

In the midst of a terrible war wherein, whatever his 
faults, his patriotism had been unquestioned, Mr. Churchill, 
out of office for a year, was savagely attacked by The Lon- 
don Times "as the public have rightly held, the prime mover 
in the Dardanelles adventure," by whose "suppression they 
were saved from a still more extensive disaster in the 
straits." 

When it was recollected by some, as it was, that "the 
adventure" at the time it was undertaken, had been extolled 
by this same paper as "an example of far-seeing vision, of a 
kind which the Allies have hitherto too often lacked," the 
character of the paper and its influence was affected, and so, 
when the report was powerfully replied to by Mr. Churchill 
and Mr. Asquith in Parliament, in spite of the great Men- 
tor's declaration that there was "nothing in Mr. Churchill's 



TEE GREAT ^y AR 97 

or Mr. Asquith's speeches to offset the broad conclusions of 
the report," the government evidently thought otherwise, 
and hastily published addenda, in which the far-reaching 
effects of even the bungled attempt to utilize the conceptions 
of genius was unmistakably displayed. 

But. in all fairness io The London Times and the power 
that controlled it, it should be admitted, that it was impar- 
tial in its attacks upon fallen greatness, for of that indi- 
vidual of whom a year previous it had asserted that his 
appointuient as a Field Marshal in the British army was 

"a happy compliment, not only to the part which his Impe- 
rial Majesty has played in the war, but also to the valor of 
his armies" — 

And an honor "especially gratifying to all the Allied 
nations" 
it now declared — 

"The discontent of the Russian Duma, the people and the 
army with the Imperial Government, for its incompetence, 
its corruption and lack of vigor in carrying on the war came 
to a head on Friday, March 9th, and after several hours 
fighting in the streets of Petrograd . . . the old 
regime fell, the Czar abdicated, a provisional government 
took up the reins of power and a new era opened for Russia.'' 

As great Russia rocked in the balance, and her mighty 
potentialities seemed in danger of being lost to the Entente 
just when everything elsewhere was coming their way, not 
a few people began to realize that the loss of even a greater 
number of the obsolete ships, saved by the press from further 
disaster in the straits, had not prevented other and finer 
ships and more men being lost elscAvhere without any short- 
ening of the war, and that at the Dardanelles a great oppor- 
tunity had been lost on account of a senseless clamor, to a 
great extent originating from personal prejudice. 

As if to mark this, the second appointment since the oust- 
ing of Mr. Churchill from the admiralty, Sir Edward Car- 
son, in reporting his own inability to materially reduce the 
ever growing toll of the submarines, publicly extolled the 



98 THE GREAT WAR 

services in the admiralty of the formerly severely criticised 
First Lord, in the abundant supply of war vessels. 

What had the Allies gained by the subordination of what 
had so learnedly been called "the subsidiary campaign" to 
what had been declared was "the main campaign?" 

A slaughtering push by Haig and Nivelle against Ilin- 
denberg on the one side and the submarines and famine 
against the world's shipping on the other. Had the Dar- 
danelles been forced, which they well might have been, with 
but a part of the terrific loss so valiantly sustained in 
France, it would have been possible to have brought out the 
wheat of Russia by such a route as to make it almost immune 
to submarine attack, and it would have been impossible to 
have crushed Great Britain by famine, as long as she could 
have held Russia to the war. Now, without the intervention 
of the United States, the Allies would be obliged to come to 
terms with Germany and the submarine menace. And, as if 
to aid in the suggestions for a peace conference, a most 
peculiarly worded, apparent news item, was issued by the 
Associated Press. Up to its appearance, the casualties 
reported in the German lists had been accepted as a basis 
of loss, and these up to February, 1917, put the same at 
988,328 German dead, 247,991 prisoners, 276,278 missing, 
2,575,094 wounded, a total of 4,087,692. Now, allowing that 
on account of superior medical and surgical skill, 60 per 
cent, of the wounded Germans returned to the colors, as 
against 50 per cent, of French and British, these lists pub- 
lished in Germany, seemed to indicate that Germany's force 
of soldiery had been reduced by the loss in killed, captured 
and maimed, of fully 2,800,145 men. 

The paper prepared by the Associated Press, and pub- 
lished as news, however, indicated two weeks later a very 
different condition of affairs. Not revealing whence its 
figures came, the Associated Press item from Washington, 
March 11th, asserted: 

"More than 10,000,000 men are reported as killed, wounded 
or captured or missing in the first completed tabulation of 
official and authentic reports of the various belligerents 
received here." 



THE GREAT ^V AR 99 

Then followed a statement indicating 4,441,200 reported 
dead, 2,598,500 wounded and 2.567,500 missing or captured, 
or exactly 9,607,200, in place of the 10,000,000. 

The list was apportioned between the Entente and Cen- 
tral powers in the following proportions: Entente losses, 
6,318,400; Central powei-s, 3,384,800. 

Evidently 96.000 had been thrown in somewhere as "good 
measure." 

Distributed among the various nationalities, this ajnazing 
"news item" proclaimed for Russia a loss of 3,084,200, of 
which 1,500.000 were dead, 784,200 wounded, and 800,000 
prisoners and missing. Next came France with a total loss 
of 1.810,800, of which 870,000 were dead, 540,800 wounded, 
and 400.000 prisoners or missing. 

Naturally, one would suppose, in a news item, that the 
next power would be the one with the next highest loss. 

Not at all. 

England was placed right next to France, almost as if to 
make the contra.st, and her total losses were put at 515,400, 
of wiiich 205,400 were dead, 102,500 wounded, and 107,500 
captured or missing. Roumania, although only engaged for 
six months, had her losses in that brief time put at what was 
nearly 50 or 75 per cent, of all the soldiery that she could 
possibly have mustered, or 500,000, of which only 100,000 
were dead and 150,000 wounded, but 250,000 were put at 
captured and missing. Italy's losses were put at 209,000, of 
which 105,000 were dead, 49,000 wounded, and 55,000 cap- 
tured or missing. Belgium's losses were put at 112,000, of 
which 50,000 were dead, 22.000 wounded, and 40,000 cap- 
tured or missing. With regard to Serbia, the total was not 
asserted, but her dead were put at 60,000 and her wounded 
at 28,000. 

Taking up, then, the losses of the Central powers, the 
statement was that "the total 'casualties' of Germany are 
1,585,200, or, as was most unnecessarily stressed, '225,000' 
less than France's. Her dead come to 893,200, which is 
slightly higher than France's (a feeble attempt to appear 
impartial), while her wounded are set at 450,000 and her 
captured and missing 245,000, proportionateh'^ the lowest of 
the nations," 



100 THE GREAT WAR 

And this, when the German lists themselves showed that 
the German dead exceeded the above by 105,000, that the 
captured were 247,000, and that, in addition, 276,000 unac- 
counted for were marked as missing. In all, 378,000 admit- 
ted as gone, but absolutely wiped off in the above, which, 
when restored to the count, as is at once apparent, put Ger- 
many's loss even by this calculation, 1,963,253, to France's 
1,810,800. 

But to expect any one to believe that of every 100 Ger- 
mans wounded, 90 returned to active service, while of all 
the other nationalities the return was exactly 80 out of each 
100 wounded, is an absurdity ; for it is an assertion not only 
that French, English, Russian, Austrian, Belgian and Turk- 
ish surgeons and hospital equipment were on an exact par; 
but that to every one, each of these cured, the Germans 
invariably cured two. 

In spite, therefore, of all the soothing argumentative state- 
ments which accompanied this extraordinary publication, it 
was patent that it had been prepared to effect, if possible, 
the imagination of the newspaper public and to convince all 
of the utter hopelessness of any further contention with this 
modern Antaeus. 

One thing, however, its publication unavoidably indicated 
to all who believed it and investigated it, and that was, that 
if 450,000 represented that proportion of the wounded 
beyond even the curative power of German skill, and that 
90 per cent, of the originally wounded had been completely 
cured, then 4,500,000 had certainly originally been wounded, 
and even if the investigator was willing to believe that the 
number alleged in the Gennan list as dead, 988,328, was 
incorrect, and the number now given — 893,200 — was correct, 
and, in addition to the 247,000 captured, the 276,000 pre- 
viously reported as missing was imaginary, and the number 
of captives actually only 245,000; yet, still, the number of 
wounded originally made the number of her casualties dur- 
ing the war just about 1,500,000 more than she had rei)orted, 
or 5,638,200. 

From all of which about the only reasonable conclusion 
which could be drawn was that the frightful effort to secure 
"her place in the sun" had cost Germany 2,634.000 killed. 



THE GREAT ^YAR 101 

maimed and captured, of whom 521,000 had been saved from 
a harder fate b}' such capture, but OA^er 2,000,000 had been 
unavailingly sacrificed to ambition. 

Meanwhile, soberly, calmly and deliberately, the great 
Peace President of the United States called upon Congress 
to assert, not the physical might of the nation; not to seek 
revenge, but to grant him power to curb the submarine 
menace that threatened humanity. As he detailed his 
efforts the truth of his claim was evident. Every course save 
one had been tried. The path of submission alone he could 
not take. He advised, therefore, that the United Stat«s 
should foi-mally accept the status of a belligerent, which had 
been thrust upon it, and that it should take immediate steps 
not only to put the country in a more thorough state of 
defense,' but also exert all its power and employ all its 
resources to bring the government of the German Empire to 
terms and to end the war. The object of the war, he thought, 
should be made clear to the world: 

" — to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the 
life of the world, as against selfish autocratic power, and to 
set up amongst really free and self-governed peoples of the 
world, such a concert of the world, such a concert of purpose 
and action as will henceforth ensure the observance of these 
principles." 

The President went further than this. He said : 

"We have not quarrelled with the German people. We 
have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and 
friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their gov- 
ernment acted in entering this war. It was not with their 
previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined 
upon, as wars used to be determined upon in the old un- 
happy days, when people were nowhere consulted by their 
rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interests 
of dynasties or little groups of ambitious men w^ho were 
accustomed to use their fellowmen as pawns and tools." 

Then followed his indictment of the German government 
in filling the ITnited States, a friendly nation, with spies and 
plotters against our laws, and attempting to stir up Japan 
and Mexico against us. His conclusion was a fitting perora- 



102 THE GREAT WAR 

tion to the highest appeal that has ever been made for war : 

"Civilization itself seems to be in the balance; but right 
is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things 
which we have always carried nearest our hearts — for democ- 
racy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have 
a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties 
of s]iiall nations, for the universal dominion of right by 
such a concert of free peoples as will bring peace and safety 
to all nations and make the world at last free." 

The American correspondent of The London Times 
praised "Mr. Wilson's skill and audacity, in boldly driving 
a wedge between the German people and the German gov- 
ernment;" but while the paper gave the speech generous 
praise, this part it could not consider other than as "a politic 
profession." And in this estimate The London Times was 
no doubt sustained by the Prussian Junkers, the great Ger- 
man captains of industry and the learned professors of that 
realm, but the common people heard him gladly, for they 
knew that just before the war, through the restricted repre- 
sentation, that the government had permitted them, they 
had implored it to accept the suggestion of a concert of 
Europe, urged by Sir Edward Grey and that Karl Liebk- 
necht, the truest representative of the masses, had continued 
those protests until he had been jailed. That war once 
declared, they had fallen into line was as natural as that 
people of the stamp of Lord Northcliffe had paid the taxes 
which Mr. Asquith's government had imposed, while con- 
tinuing to protest against it also, and to agitate to obtain 
one more to their liking. 

The speech made a profound impression throughout the 
world. It brought from Congress an overwhelming declar- 
ation for war. It did more, it brought the people of the 
United States together more effectively than any other mode 
of procedure could have done. In one powerful utterance, 
the greatest intellect of the Republican party, Mr. Root, dis- 
posed of all talk of a coalition government, while Mr. Wil- 
son's last opponent for the presidency, Mr. Hughes, mod- 
estly, forciblv and magnanimously proclaimed it "match- 
less." 



THE GREAT WAR 103 

So into the Great War the Great Republic swung. 

Germany had had the chance offered her, with exemplary 
I^atience and forbearance, to select which she would take, 
unrestricted submarine warfare and the United States as an 
enemy, or restricted submarine warfare and the United 
States as a friend, and she, or her junkers and capitalists 
for her, had deliberately chosen the former. She had 
refused to state the terms upon which she would discuss 
peace, although implored to do so by a large portion of the 
rej^resentatives of those she was sending to death and 
destruction on the claim that she was waging a defensive 
war. There was but one explanation of the attitude of her 
government. It stood for "world power or downfall." 



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